Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SAINT OSWALD ESTATE BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Old Age Pensioners (Supplementary Assistance)

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will give an assurance that old-age pensioners in receipt of supplementary allowances will receive additional assistance to cover any additional rent or rate increases imposed by local authorities.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake): The National Assistance Board inform me that increases in rent or rates are always taken into consideration and that if, as in the great majority of cases, the assistance is providing for the rent in full it will usually be adjusted to provide for any reasonable increase in rent.

Miss Ward: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that very satisfactory piece of information, may I ask whether he can tell us why it was not possible for him to give us some indication about the additional costs when I asked him a Question the other day. When I asked my right hon. Friend how much the additional cost would be to the Assistance Board, his answer was that the information was not available. I just wondered how it comes to be available now.

Mr. Peake: I certainly have not, and I do not suppose that the Assistance Board have at their disposal, full details of the increases that have been made in municipal rates and local rates.

Mr. McLeavy: Can the Assistance Board, under their existing regulations, give the additional amount of financial assistance mentioned in the Question, and is it anticipated that the Board will carry out an early review of their regulations in order to enable them to do it?

Mr. Peake: The Board certainly have the necessary power, and I am told that they can and do give increases in assistance retrospectively, where the applicant has not applied for it until after the event.

Mr. A. Evans: asked the Minister of National Insurance (1) if he will make known to all retirement pensioners that the National Assistance Board will, in special circumstances, make grants for such items as clothing and household equipment;
(2) if he will make known to all retirement pensioners that the National Assistance Board will, when considering applications for the supplementation of pension, disregard savings up to £375 which have been placed in the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank, or savings certificates, since 2nd September, 1939.

Mr. Peake: The order book sent to retirement pensioners already tells them how they can apply for supplementary assistance if they need it and directs attention to explanatory leaflets obtainable at the Post Office, which refer to war savings and grants for exceptional needs. I do not consider that further general directions to retirement pensioners are called for.

Mr. Evans: Would the Minister agree that the tentative promise which he gave today in reply to another Question, that he would undertake to prepare a simplified leaflet, to some extent meets the point that I have raised?

Mr. Peake: I promised to consider the suggestion of a new and amalgamated leaflet embodying information about various forms of pension. I assure hon. Members that it is not an easy problem, because we have different classes of pensioner and the whole system of disregards is extremely complicated and elaborate. I hesitate to pretend that I can put all that in such simple language that every citizen will understand it.

Mr. Hamilton: Can the Minister say how wide is the discretionary power of


the National Assistance Board officers? Does it vary from region to region or office to office? Is he aware that there is some misapprehension, particularly in Scotland, that the different Assistance Board officers have varied discretionary power?

Mr. Peake: I have not heard that suggestion before. The whole point of National Assistance is that there is this very wide discretion to meet immensely varying individual cases and needs, and I believe that the whole House pays tribute to the way in which National Assistance has been administered.

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister for National Insurance the number of persons in receipt of retirement pensions and the number of them also in receipt of National Assistance to the nearest most convenient date.

Mr. Peake: The number of retirement and contributory old age pensioners on 31st March, 1953, was about 4,200,000, of whom some 870,000 were also receiving regular weekly grants of National Assistance. In some cases, however, the grant covers the needs of a household containing more than one pensioner.

Mr. Hale: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is still a great deal of misunderstanding, which has been contributed to by recent statements, about the circumstances in which the old age pensioner is entitled to claim National Assistance? Could he arrange for the publication of a modern leaflet setting out the present scales and giving this kind of valuable information, which is so much needed?

Mr. Peake: Only recently I contributed an article to a newspaper called "The Old Age Pensioner," in order to try to correct some of the misapprehensions about this matter which seem to be in circulation. It is a little complicated, and I should hesitate very much to try to express very comprehensively the exact position of all pensioners, because there are contributory and non-contributory pensioners and the standards applicable to them are not the same.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that many months ago he promised to publish a pamphlet

giving all the details of pensions and benefits for the benefit of hon. Members, contributors and others? Has any progress been made in compiling this publication?

Mr. Peake: We have the most detailed leaflets which are available in my offices, and also in post offices, to old age and retirement pensioners. If the hon. Gentleman would like to have a copy of any of these I should be only too pleased to send it to him.

Mr. Gower: Are not these things somewhat involved, and is it not a fact that an applicant would have to obtain a number of leaflets in order to ascertain his or her position? Would not a comprehensive leaflet, as suggested by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) be of great value?

Mr. Peake: I will consider it.

Pensioners (Cost of Living)

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware of the growing hardship amongst old age pensioners due to the increase in the price of food; and whether he is prepared to make immediate representation as to the need for an early increase in the basic rate of retirement pension.

Mr. George Craddock: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will take steps to increase pensions paid to old age pensioners to offset the increases in food prices which have taken place in recent months.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will increase old age pensions, widows' pensions, and unemployment and sickness benefits in proportion to the increased cost of living since the last increases were given.

Mr. Peake: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave on 22nd June to the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. Hale: Is the Minister aware that that reply did not give any satisfaction? Will he bear in mind that in present circumstances, with the prevailing prices of bacon, butter and meat, many of these vital items are passing wholly out of the old age pensioners' lives? Now that we are assured officially that there is no


National Assistance available in respect of the increased price of food, will he look at this matter very seriously, because it is of great importance?

Mr. Peake: The hon. Member must be aware of the difficulty of continually changing the rates of pension under a contributory scheme where the rates of pension are related to the rates of contribution. In fact, the 1952 Act restored the purchasing power of benefits to what the pensions had originally, in July, 1948, and there has been very little change since the new rate of pensions came into operation in the summer and autumn of last year.

Mr. Brockway: Is the Minister aware that whatever may be the fall or rise in the cost of living generally, to these people there is no doubt about the rise in the cost of living, because it affects food and the first essentials? Does he not know of the dire need among these people and will he reconsider the request which we have made in these Questions?

Mr. Peake: It is quite unfair to assume that the majority, or even a fairly large proportion, of these people have no other resources than their retirement pension.

Mr. Hale: There are 870,000.

Mr. Peake: In fact, the large majority, something like three-quarters, have other resources. While it is true that certain items in the cost-of-living index have increased in the last few months, the assistance scales were most generously increased last year and it is also true that people receiving help from the Assistance Board are much better off today than at any time since the end of the war.

Mr. Hale: Is the Minister aware that the present cost-of-living index is inapplicable to old age pensioners? They do not spend money on clothes, because they cannot afford them and cannot replace them. Is he aware that their principal item is food, that the price of food has gone up and has been deliberately forced up by the actions of Her Majesty's Government?

Insurance Scheme (Review)

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will seek the advice and guidance of the friendly societies, insurance companies, trade

unions and other bodies in connection with the quinquennial review required by the National Insurance Act; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peake: My hon. Friend can be assured that representative bodies will be given every opportunity of putting forward their views in connection with the forthcoming review of the National Insurance Scheme, but I cannot be more precise at present.

Mr. Gower: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his statement, may I ask whether, as this review will be of such tremendous importance, preliminary work is now being done on these lines?

Mr. Peake: Yes, Sir. Quite a lot of preliminary work is now being done in my Department on subjects directly connected with the review.

Oral Answers to Questions — FUEL AND POWER

Cross-Channel Power Cable

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what progress has been made in his negotiations with Electricité de France for laying a subterranean cross-Channel power cable; and whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): Yes, Sir. The scheme being considered involves the laying of three or four electric submarine cables across the Channel capable of transferring a total of 100,000 kilowatts of power at 132,000 volts. Last year I approved a proposal of the British Electricity Authority that they should co-operate with Electricité de France in a programme of experiment and development. This work is progressing well; sample lengths of special cables have been constructed and I am informed that cable laying trials will be carried out this summer.

Mr. Nabarro: In view of the extraordinary success in the war years of Pluto, which is similar in principle, and the fact that a pipeline was then evolved and manufactured in a period of slightly over two years from start to finish, can my right hon. Friend say when a subterranean electricity cable of this kind can be brought into use?

Mr. Lloyd: I well remember the impulse that was given by the Prime Minister to that work at that time. It is different in peace-time, when one has to have co-operation between two nationalised undertakings in different countries, but the work is proceeding very well and I understand that the programme of research and development will be finished next year.

Colonel Clarke: If and when this system is instituted, will it be a two-way traffic by which we may receive electricity or transmit it?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir. That is the essence of the proposal, particularly at peak hours.

Mr. Palmer: Would the Minister not agree that the technical problems involved in this matter are vastly different from those that were involved in Pluto?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, because the one cable contained petroleum and the other, we hope, will contain electricity.

Atomic Power

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will make a statement on the effect of atomic power on the future of the fuel industries.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I am studying this matter in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply and other Ministers concerned, and I have had discussions with experts from the atomic energy establishments in company with the chairmen of the nationalised fuel industries. At the present stage there is not enough knowledge on which to base a precise assessment of the effect of nuclear energy on the fuel industries; but the earliest application is likely to be in the generation of electric power.
The Government are alive to the importance of applying nuclear energy to industrial problems, and this is being taken fully into account in the atomic energy programme.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of the embryonic state of the researches and investigations which are now being conducted, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, is it wise that an official, I think it was, of the British Electricity Authority should make optimistic statements about the

early use of atomic power and the detrimental effect it will have on the fuel industry?

Mr. Lloyd: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I do not have any day-to-day control of the utterances of officials of nationalised industries, but it would certainly be unwise to make over-optimistic statements.

Mr. Woodburn: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is correct that in the present state of knowledge there is no indication that with the capital sums involved in producing atomic power there will be any economy over the use of coal or water in the production of electricity?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot commit myself to any statement of that kind, and, in any event, questions relating to such matters should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that I am not suggesting that if there is any prospect of the use of atomic power it should in any way be suppressed, but that there is apprehension in certain quarters, particularly in the coal industry, about the ultimate effect of the use of atomic power for industrial purposes? Is he planning this matter so as to ensure that no one will suffer?

Mr. Lloyd: It was for that reason that, with the co-operation of my right hon. Friend, I had discussions with the experts of the atomic energy establishments, at which the Chairman of the National Coal Board was, of course, present. We wanted them to be in touch with developments at the very earliest stage. It is really too early to make precise assessments, but we shall certainly need all the coal that we can get.

Mr. Logan: Has the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry taken into consideration what period will have to elapse before an alternative to coal can be introduced? Will the use of atomic energy be a solution to our difficulties?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that anybody knows at the present stage.

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power to what extent his Department will in future assume separate


responsibilities for the industrial use of atomic power; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Future responsibility for the industrial use of atomic power is at present under consideration by the Waverley Committee.

Mr. Gower: Will the Minister say, in due course, that the name of his Department indicates that his Department should be largely responsible for this aspect of the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: The matter is under consideration by this Committee. Any question about its work would have to be put to the Prime Minister.

Gas Companies (Stockholders' Compensation)

Mr. Pitman: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware that the stockholders of a number of gas companies have not received the distribution to which they are entitled in the light of the recent decision of the High Court in the case of Whittington v. the North Eastern Gas Board re the Morley Gas Company, and that the stockholders in question are unable to pursue their remedy, as their duly-appointed representatives have now ceased to hold office; and if he will exercise his powers under Section 27 of the Gas Act, 1948, to enable fresh representatives to be appointed or afford other means of pursuing a remedy.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: So far as I have powers under Section 27 of the Gas Act, 1948, to cause or enable a stockholders' representative to be appointed, and the exercise of those powers is necessary to enable stockholders to pursue any remedy available to them, I am certainly prepared to exercise my powers.

Mr. Pitman: Will the Minister similarly exercise those powers in the case of the basic price company, which has a Board of Trade clause where the undistributed profits would be distributable had the Ministry of Fuel and Power laid down, during the war—when they were too busy otherwise to consider it—conditions under which they might be distributed?

Mr. Lloyd: As the House will realise, I had to take careful legal advice when drafting the original answer. I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind, therefore, if I ask for notice of that supplementary question.

Peat (Use)

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what plans he has for increasing the use of peat in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Plans for increasing the use of peat will depend on the outcome of the experimental work which I described in a reply on 2nd February. Gas turbines have been developed to run on peat, and machines are being installed to prepare the raw peat for feeding to the turbines, and this work is making satisfactory progress.

Mr. Gower: In view of the limitations of our coal supplies, should not the development of alternative fuels like peat be regarded as a matter of far greater urgency? Cannot the Minister popularise peat as a possible domestic fuel, as he will agree that it is used very successfully in Eire?

Mr. Lloyd: It is regarded as a matter of urgency.

Proposed Power Station, Gileston

Mr. Pearson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware that the proposal to construct an electricity power station on The Leys, Gileston, St. Athan, Glamorgan, if proceeded with will destroy approximately 135 acres of good agricultural land and valuable amenities which includes the Barry Golf Club, established over 56 years ago; and what steps he has taken, before giving his consent, to find an alternative site less destructive of good agricultural land and amenities.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I have heard that there may be a proposal for a power station in the Aberthaw area of Gileston, Glamorgan, but the British Electricity Authority have not yet applied for my consent and I have no details of the proposal at present.

Mr. Pearson: Does the Minister recall that only recently he had to refuse his consent to the siting of a power station at Machen, in Monmouthshire? Would it not be an advantage for the planning authority to be called in at an early stage instead of being almost the last to be informed about the siting of these stations?

Mr. Lloyd: It is difficult for me to act before an application has been made to me by the British Electricity Authority.

Power Station Stocks

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps he is taking to ensure that coal stocks at power stations are adequate to meet anticipated demands during the coming winter.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: There are ample supplies of the grades of coal mainly used by the power stations.

Mr. Palmer: While appreciating the good sense, in general, of that answer, may I ask whether it is not a fact that power station stocks should be adequate in relation to the possible transport difficulties of those stations during the winter months? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied on that point?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir. Although not quite as high as last year, they are not far away and they are far higher than they were in any year before.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL

Registration Application, Bridlington

Mr. Spearman: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why Mr. J. W. Dawson's application, of 14th March, to register as a coal merchant in the Bridlington rural district has been refused.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I understand that the local fuel overseer refused the application on the ground that the small villages concerned are already served by five coal merchants.

Mr. Spearman: If my right hon. Friend thinks it necessary to continue coal rationing, would he not try to devise a system by which permits are not allocated on the basis of conditions in 1939? Could he inform his regional overseers that it is not his policy to discourage competition?

Mr. Lloyd: It is certainly not our policy to discourage competition, but difficult questions arise as to what is really the right number of coal merchants in an area while we have this severe limitation on household distribution.

Opencast Working, Heanor

Mr. Oliver: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will reconsider his decision to authorise the

prospecting for opencast coal in the urban district of Heanor, Derbyshire, having regard to the large number of sites which have already been worked and which have caused discomfort and annoyance to the people in the area and encroached on the limited amount of land suitable and available for house building purposes.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir. Prospecting does no appreciable harm and it is most desirable that the National Coal Board should find out what coal may be available for working in case of need. If further coal is found and the Board seek my authority to work it I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that I will bear his views in mind before coming to a decision.

Mr. Oliver: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, but does he appreciate that in this part of Derbyshire there has been so much opencast coal working that there is very little land now left for houses for miners? We are getting into a very acute situation in that respect.

Mr. J. T. Price: Does the Minister realise that owing to the high cost of machinery used in opencast mining there is a strong temptation in some quarters to use this machinery seven days a week without regard for the convenience or comfort of the people who have to suffer from the noise developed by these machines?

Stocks

Mr. McLeavy: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he has considered the statement issued by the Yorkshire Federation of Coal Merchants Associations, a copy of which has been sent to him, concerning the quantity of supplies of coal allocated to them; and if he will make a statement upon the position in Bradford and the surrounding districts.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will give the figure of coal stocks at present available in the country and a comparable figure for 1952; and how far the stocks of household coal will be sufficient to maintain the ration next winter.

Mr. Gibson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will assure


the House that the stock of domestic coal in London will be maintained at a high enough level, during the coming winter, to ensure a full ration for every household in the London area.

Mr. Parker: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps are being taken to stock adequate supplies of coal in Dagenham for use during the winter.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will now make a full statement upon prospects for house coal supplies next winter; and what special steps he proposes to take to assure adequacy, in view of the currently low stocks.

Major Anstruther-Gray: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will give figures to show the present stocks of household coal in Scotland compared with last year; and how far he estimates that these are sufficient to assure an adequate supply throughout the winter.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: On 20th June stocks of house coal were 464,000 tons, that is, some 300,000 tons below last year's level. The slow rate of stock increase during the past few weeks is a matter of particular concern to the Government. As I explained last week, there is this year a special holiday loss of nearly 5 million tons concentrated in the summer months.
In view of the special importance of house coal, I have asked the National Coal Board to ensure that supplies are available to build up the stocks held by merchants to an adequate level, appropriately distributed between north and south, and London and other towns. This could not be done on the basis of the highest qualities alone, and it is, therefore, important that all the qualities in the house coal range should be taken by the merchants and the public in the summer as well as the winter.
I have been advised by the National Coal Board and the merchants that the prices of the different grades are at present not properly related to each other. I have, therefore, agreed to a reduction in the price of the lower grades on 8th July and an increase in the price of the better qualities.

Mr. McLeavy: While thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he can say, in view of the statement made by the Yorkshire Federation,

whether he has had discussions with the Coal Board about not only to the quantity but the quality of coal which, I understand, is diminishing in supply in the Bradford area?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir. One of the difficulties which the country faces at present is the gradual but almost continual fall in the proportion of large coal contained in the total output of coal. It is, therefore, most important, if we are ever to get away from the coal restrictions which are now in force, that consumers of coal, not only of house coal but of every type of coal, should install appropriate appliances to enable themselves satisfactorily to consume the smaller sizes of coal.

Mr. Nabarro: Can my right hon. Friend respond to two points? First, in view of the critical house coal position developing next winter, is there no prospect of removing coke from the ration, as there are evidently plentiful supplies at the moment? Secondly, can he say whether all the briquette plants in the country which can use up so much of this low grade material and turn it into good household solid fuel, are at present working to full capacity?

Mr. Lloyd: I could not give that undertaking, and one of the reasons is that the public have not been readily absorbing the briquettes which my hon. Friend mentions, although it would be very helpful if they would do so.
It is important to realise that all householders are entitled to a ration of coke as well as of coal. It would be most helpful if they adopted my hon. Friend's suggestion and were ready to take some of it at this time to prepare for the winter. I could not at the moment contemplate derestricting coke supplies because, as the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Noel-Baker) knows from his own experience, it is one of the most temperamental of all fuels from the point of view of the rise and fall in stocks.
I am sorry to be so long answering, but among the measures that I have taken in order to be able to deal with house coal problems in the forthcoming winter, I have asked the gas works to use a maximum of petroleum in enriching the supply of gas, which will save half a million tons of coal during the summer; but, of course, this consumes coke.

Mr. Gibson: How does the Minister expect people to stock up in the summer if the stocks in the merchants' yards are down? Is he aware that a day or two ago an official of the Society of Coal Merchants, representing over 300 merchants in London, said that their stocks are negligible, so that there will be very great difficulty in stocking even at summer prices? Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any prospect of an increase in stocks of any kind of coal in the London area?

Mr. Lloyd: The principal trouble has been that there has been a run on the highest qualities of coal, and the consumer is not, or has not been, prepared to take the less good qualities. We are hoping to assist the merchants by this re-arrangement of price.

Major Anstruther-Gray: My right hon. Friend has not given any separate figures for Scotland. Is the position, in general, better there than in the rest of the country, and can he say whether stocks are readily interchangeable between Scotland and England?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot say that I have provided myself with the figures for Scotland, but I would have said that they are similar to those for England. I do not think that a special problem arises there at the moment.

Mr. Noel-Baker: How much coal has been taken up for stocking in Scotland under the summer prices scheme? Further, has the right hon. Gentleman had an assurance from the merchants that they will press the sale of smaller coal on those who have the necessary fuel efficiency appliances?

Mr. Lloyd: The amount of coal so far taken by householders is roughly comparable to that taken in the same period last year. I am confident that the merchants are doing their best, in their very difficult position between the Coal Board on the one side and the public on the other, to press the sale of the less good qualities of coal, but they will be much assisted by the announcement on prices which I have made today.

Mr. Noel-Baker: The point is that the smaller coal is equally good in the efficient appliances. The merchants know who have the efficient appliances. The question is: are the merchants really pressing

that coal on those who have those appliances?

Mr. Lloyd: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has clarified that point, because it is most important that when there is so much talk about bad coal—and there is unquestionably a good deal of bad coal about—the public should not confuse that bad coal with coal of the smaller sizes which, although different from the traditional coal in use in the past, may often be of a higher quality.

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) the present stock position of coal as compared with a year ago and the forecast as regards next winter;
(2) what the prospects are for coal exports for the remainder of the year.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: On 20th June, total coal stocks at 16·50 million tons were, broadly, the same as a year ago. Within this total, however, distributed stocks were about 1·3 million tons down and undistributed about 1·1 million tons up on last year's level. We have so far exported about 6·3 million tons, that is, about 1·3 million tons more than in the comparable period last year. I do not feel able at present to forecast the figures for the whole of the year.

Sir I. Fraser: Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that, judging from early reports, the speech which has just been made by Sir William Lawther is a statesmanlike contribution to this difficulty, and will he join me in expressing the hope that the miners will help us out of this difficulty in this coming winter?

Mr. Lloyd: I am not quite sure to which speech my hon. Friend is referring, but it is the fact, and it should be appreciated, that the miners' leaders are playing a most helpful and vigorous part, with the National Coal Board, in the campaign for increased output.

Mr. Shurmer: As statements have been made that there is to be a shortage of coal this winter, will the Minister see that the poorer quarters of the City of Birmingham—where the inferior qualities are taken—are well stocked, instead of the better-off districts?

Mr. Lloyd: That is the precise purpose of the announcement I have made this afternoon.

Fuel-Saving Appliances

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the threatened shortage of coal next winter, he will speed up the introduction of fuel-saving grates, stoves and other economical appliances.

Mr. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps he has taken to encourage the production of high-efficiency open fires of utility pattern capable of easy installation in existing fire-openings, as recommended by the Ridley Committee.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The Coal Utilisation Council is constantly extending its campaign in favour of these new appliances, and I am glad to tell the House that last year nearly 2 million of them were delivered to the home market, compared with 687,000 in 1951 and 345,000 in 1950. A six-fold increase in two years is a remarkable achievement and if the 1952 rate could be maintained for another two years about half the homes in the country will have these appliances.

Mr. Woodburn: Are there any steps which the Ministry can take to ensure that that is so, because in the foundry area of Falkirk and the surrounding district there is a great deal of unemployment among the very people making these fuel-saving appliances? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply to see whether it can be assured that there will be no shortage of iron or the necessary orders? There is plenty of capacity for increasing the production of these appliances immediately.

Mr. Lloyd: In reply to a later Question I am pointing out that certain changes are occurring in the industry at the moment. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman's question can be connected with that Question.

Mr. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps he has taken to establish new standards of performance, based on achieving a room efficiency of 40 per cent. with coal, for solid-fuel room-heating appliances, as proposed by the Ridley Committee.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: New standards of performance were brought into force on 30th June. The efficiency stipulated, together with the revised methods of test,

set a higher standard which in many cases, if the appliance is appropriately installed, is comparable with the 40 per cent. room efficiency recommended by the Ridley Committee.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Do I understand that approval will not be given to any types of appliance which do not meet this standard of efficiency? Can the Minister also assure us that raw materials will be available for the manufacture of sufficient quantities?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think there is difficulty about raw materials at present. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, these specifications are extremely elaborate, and they have gone out to the industry.

Mr. Alport: How many of the two million appliances produced and sold last year came up to the standard of efficiency which is now in operation?

Mr. Lloyd: They came up to the standard of efficiency which was then in operation. I cannot say how many would reach this higher standard.

Mr. Manuel: Is the Minister aware that his repeated attempts to sell lower grades of coal and coke will not meet with the success he desires while there are so many open-burning fires? Is he aware that his only chance of selling those lower grade coals is to push much more the production of fuel-saving appliances?

Mr. Lloyd: I would point out that the efficiencies stipulated until the new standards came into operation applied only to coke, whereas the present new specifications of efficiency apply also to coal.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will make a statement on progress made in promoting the efficient use of fuel in Government Departments and other branches of the public service.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Yes, Sir. About 5,000 improved solid fuel appliances have been installed in Government buildings in place of the old type of open grate. Where further replacements are necessary improved appliances are always installed. Improved appliances have also been installed in new houses erected by the Ministry of Supply and efficient closed stoves have been fitted in many Army and R.A.F. barracks.
In addition, training courses are run for stokers and others; heating plants in Government buildings are being surveyed and improved; and steps are being taken to improve cooking equipment in canteens.

Mr. Palmer: Has the attention of local authorities been drawn to this point, which was one of the recommendations of the Ridley Committee?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir.

Anthracite Supplies (Distribution)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) when he proposes to make use of the administrative machinery already available for securing the distribution of anthracite and Welsh dry steam nuts on an equitable basis;
(2) why supplies of anthracite and Welsh dry steam nuts to coal merchants are still based on their 1939 deliveries; and whether he will now consider distributing anthracite and Welsh dry steam nuts in accordance with current coal registrations;
(3) whether, in view of the fact that supplies of anthracite and Welsh dry steam nuts to southern areas of England are nearly adequate, he will ensure that a larger quantity is transferred to the North-West of England where supplies are insufficient.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The supply of anthracite is very short, and it can, therefore, only be assured for the limited number of special appliances which operate on small sizes of anthracite and nothing else. The National Coal Board do their best to share anthracite and the other boiler fuels fairly between merchants. A system of distribution based on statistical returns would mean the sending out of millions of forms, and I do not think that this would be justified. I am glad to say that there are at present ample supplies of coke available in all parts of the country, and merchants should, therefore, be able to keep their customers supplied with fuel suitable for their appliances.

Mr. Erroll: Cannot the Minister look at those many cases where some merchants have larger supplies of anthracite than others and are able to

give more generous allocations to their own customers than newer merchants can give to their customers?

Mr. Lloyd: I will look into that matter.

Selling Prices

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power to what extent, and to whom, the National Coal Board sells coal below its actual cost of production; and what steps he is taking to rectify this state of affairs.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: It is for the National Coal Board to decide the price they should charge for any particular coal, but their prices, taken as a whole, are at present designed to cover the average cost of production, and it follows that some coals are sold at less and some at more than the actual costs of producing them.

Mr. Hamilton: That does not answer the Question. Can the Minister tell us precisely who, or which firms, are getting this coal at uneconomic prices? Does he not realise that it amounts to a subsidy from a nationalised industry to a private concern? Will he be good enough to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT, if he has not them here, the names of the firms who are getting this coal at uneconomic prices?

Mr. Lloyd: This does not involve a subsidy to one set of firms any more than it could be held on the other hand, to involve a penalty to other firms. It is the pricing policy of the Coal Board and is carried out irrespective of individual firms.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not a fact that coking coal is at present being sold at a loss, and that there is a very serious shortage of it? Will not the Minister consider charging a price for coking coal which covers its cost of production?

Mr. Lloyd: I will consider that point, since the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned it, but he may be aware that the price of coking coal has advanced more, proportionately, than other coals in some of the recent increases. I do not know whether he would consider it wise to push up the price of coking coal further, and so increase the price of gas and coke.

Mr. Gaitskell: I have in mind the cost of producing coking coal in Durham, which is rather high. I suggest that to secure greatest economy, in steel producing firms in particular, it would be advisable to charge the full price.

Mr. Lloyd: I will look into that question.

Miss Ward: Will the Minister bear in mind that the Coal Board charge more to the lower income groups because they have to buy in bags? Cannot he arrange for them to have their coal at the same cheap price which applies to people who place bigger orders?

Mr. Lloyd: Unfortunately, larger orders are more economic from the point of view of distribution than smaller ones, which have to be supplied in smaller packets, as it were.

Miss Ward: Will the Minister do something about it?

Mr. Lloyd: I will give my hon. Friend the undertaking that I shall discuss the matter with the Chairman of the Coal Board.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is it not a fact that both the small and the large user get their coal much cheaper than they would do if the industry had not been nationalised?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think I could agree with that statement.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the pithead prices of the various grades of coal, indicating which grades are used for domestic or industrial purposes.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The National Coal Board is responsible for the pithead prices of individual grades of coal as a matter of day-to-day administration and I would suggest that the hon. Member might like to make direct inquiries of the Board.

Mr. Manuel: Does not the Minister think that this is an extraordinary position, in view of the fact that pithead prices are factual? Why cannot he give them when an hon. Member asks for them? Why does he not do something to relate the price charged at the pithead to the retail price?

Mr. Lloyd: I am only trying sincerely and fairly to operate a system which I inherited. I might point out to the hon. Gentleman something of which he may not be aware—that there are between 7,000 and 8,000 different commercial descriptions of coal.

Mr. Manuel: Yes, of course.

Mr. K. Thompson: Mr. Speaker, may I draw your attention to Question No. 26, which related to precisely the same point, which was apparently accepted by the Table—as was Question No. 36—and which was answered by the Minister? I simply raise the point because many of us are in grave doubt about what we can ask, what will be accepted and to what we can expect an answer.

Mr. Speaker: This Question was not quite the same as Question No. 26. This Question is admissible, and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has received an answer to it.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the average retail prices charged for the various grades of domestic and industrial coal.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I regret that this information is not available but I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a sample maximum retail price for house coal in a few selected towns and if he requires further information he will, no doubt, communicate with me. Similar information for industrial coal is not available.

Mr. Manuel: I thank the Minister for that information, but will he make certain that there is equity in the prices charged for the various grades of coal? Is he sure that the economic return from the industrial coal being used is what it ought to be, when compared with the return from the coal being used by the domestic consumer?

Mr. Lloyd: I should require notice of that question.

Captain Orr: Does the list of these towns include Belfast?

Mr. Lloyd: No, but I will let the hon. Member know.

Following are the figures:

The maximum retail prices of group 4 coals, which are of average quality, are at present as follow:



Per ton


Troon
s
d.


Troon
91
10


Edinburgh
92
9


Sheffield
89
6


Manchester
94
3


Birmingham
95
3


Bristol
109
6


Cambridge
112
5


London
118
11

NOTE.—These prices take account of the current reductions under the summer/winter prices scheme of 2s. 6d. per ton in Bristol, London and Cambridge, and of 5s. per ton in the other places.

Site, Wingerworth (Requisitioning)

Mr. H. White: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how much of the Shanks Site, near Wingerworth, Derbyshire, he proposes to requisition; why he has ignored the objections of the Chesterfield Rural District Council, who have carried out an extensive sewage and sewage disposal scheme costing many thousands of pounds to meet the future development of this area as a housing estate; and if he will give further consideration to the opposition of local authorities to this suggested scheme.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I cannot say whether any land at this site will be requisitioned until consultations now going on with other Departments and interests concerned are completed. Meanwhile, the Chesterfield Rural District Council have been informed that their objections are being considered and that a further communication will be sent to them before any decision is taken.

Oral Answers to Questions — PLYWOOD IMPORTS (CONTROLS)

Mr. John Hall: asked the Minister of Materials when he anticipates removing the remaining controls on the import of plywood.

The Minister of Materials (Sir Arthur Salter): Imports of plywood are at present controlled by linking the issue of import licences to purchases from the Ministry's stocks. I explained the reasons for this in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on 29th June. The duration of this

scheme will depend upon the rate of disposal of stocks. There is also restriction on the import of dollar plywood. When it will be possible to remove all control over plywood imports will depend on our balance of payments situation.

Mr. Hall: While I can hardly be disappointed at receiving the reply which I expected, may I nevertheless ask these questions: first, is the Minister aware that the relaxation to which he referred in the answer he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) can have the broad effect of doubling the value of import entitlement only if the importer is willing to buy a quantity of substandard or unsuitable plywood? Secondly, is he aware that the ratio of purchases from Ministry stocks to imports is so weighted as to discourage the purchase of the type of plywood which the furniture industry requires? Lastly, is he aware that the present method of disposing of the Ministry's stocks is likely to increase the cost of manufactured furniture to the purchasing public? Would he not consider this question again?

Sir A. Salter: I would not accept my hon. Friend's first supplementary question as a general statement because in many cases the Ministry's stocks are such as are convenient for the use of the purchaser. In regard to the second, the ratio, roughly, has been halved this last week, and I think that that largely meets the difficulty my hon. Friend had in mind. I think that that, too, to a large extent answers his third question as well.

Oral Answers to Questions — MARRIED WOMEN (DOMICILIARY LAW)

Mrs. Corbet: asked the Attorney-General if he will, in the near future, introduce legislation to amend the law with regard to the domicile of married women, so as to remove the disabilities suffered by them under the present law, particularly as to status, matrimonial rights and the right to, and devolution of, their property.

The Attorney-General (Sir Lionel Heald): Certain aspects of the law relating to the domicile of married women are now being considered by the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce and the law relating to domicile generally


is being considered by the Standing Committee on Private International Law, appointed by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. When the recommendations of these bodies have been received the question of legislation will be considered.

Mrs. Corbet: Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that there is very considerable hardship and injustice and uncertainty attaching to the law relating to domicile? Is he not of the opinion now that the time has come for more urgent action, if possible along the lines he suggested?

The Attorney-General: I think that these are precisely matters under consideration by the two bodies, and I think it would be very much better to wait and see what they say. I do not think there is any reason to suppose that they will be long.

Miss Ward: Does my hon. and learned Friend think that the committees will have reported in time to include the necessary legislation in next Session's programme?

The Attorney-General: We can all hope, but we cannot do any more than that.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (ARMISTICE DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to make a statement on the negotiations and discussions at present taking place with President Rhee.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a further statement on the situation in Korea.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister the latest information he has received about the policy of Mr. Syngman Rhee towards the proposed armistice in Korea.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. R. A. Butler): Consultations between the United Nations Command, Mr. Walter Robertson and President Syngman Rhee are still continuing. Among the questions being discussed are the implementation of the Agreement reached at Panmunjom on 8th June for the exchange of prisoners of war and also the steps to be taken for a settlement of

the Korean question after the conclusion of an armistice.
Her Majesty's Government earnestly hope that these negotiations will lead to a solution of the present grave difficulties. For the time being, therefore, it would be premature to reconvene the General Assembly of the United Nations. If, however, no progress can be made by direct negotiations, then, clearly, that course will have to be taken. Her Majesty's Government are keeping in close touch with other member Governments of the United Nations about this matter.

Mr. Hughes: Could the Chancellor tell us how long it will be now before we shall be going to the United Nations and calling upon them to brand Mr. Syngman Rhee as an aggressor and upon the Chinese to restrain him?

Mr. Butler: I think we should await the results of the consultations which are taking place as I have described, and we should also have in mind the negotiations we are having with other member Governments.

Mr. Wyatt: Could the Chancellor assure us that the Government, with the Government of the United States, are making adequate plans to make sure that if an armistice is signed it cannot be sabotaged by President Syngman Rhee?

Mr. Butler: That is also covered by the consultations taking place. The hon. Gentleman can be quite sure that that is in the mind not only of the Government but of other Governments concerned.

Mr. Strachey: Will not the Chancellor agree that unless some early, effective steps are taken between the Governments concerned and President Syngman Rhee we shall be in growing danger of British troops in Korea finding themselves in an impossible position politically and militarily?

Mr. Butler: That is very much in mind and that is why we hope that these consultations will have the desired effect. If not, as I indicated in my answer, there are further steps which may be taken.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it is now nearly two months since a settlement has been held up by difficulties caused by


President Syngman Rhee, and that there is a danger in leaving the summoning of the Assembly too late, in that that may leave great power with President Syngman Rhee?

Mr. Butler: Yes, but the summoning of the Assembly is not a matter for one Government but for the other Governments concerned, too. I can honestly say that this is urgently in the minds of other Governments besides our own.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether we are taking part in these discussions? Are the discussions being confined to the United States, although reference is made to the United Nations Command?

Mr. Butler: In so far as we are associated with the United Nations we are taking part in the discussions, and Mr. Walter Robertson is taking part as the envoy of President Eisenhower. The right hon. Gentleman may be quite certain that we are well aware of what is going on.

Mr. Shinwell: We may be informed of what is going on, but we are not actually participating in the discussions directly. Is that not so? Why is the right hon. Gentleman not honest about it?

Mr. Butler: I have indicated that we are to the extent I have described, and if it is any consolation to the right hon. Gentleman our views have also been made perfectly clear to President Syngman Rhee.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL SITUATION (CONFERENCES)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the changed circumstances that have arisen since the original arrangements for the three-Power conference to be held in Bermuda, he will now approach President Eisenhower and the President of France with the suggestion that this conference be now held in London.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The hon. Member put this thought to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State in his supplementary Question of 29th June. I can only say, as was said then, that his suggestion will be borne in mind.

Mr. Lewis: That was the same reply that I received before. Can the Chancellor say whether or not he has conveyed that suggestion to the Prime Minister, and whether any approach has been made to President Eisenhower, who has already expressed his willingness to go half-way? In view of the fact that this may be helpful to the Prime Minister in speeding up these discussions, will he at least ask President Eisenhower and the President of France what their views are on this matter?

Mr. Butler: I should have thought that from the tone of my answer the hon. Gentleman would have realised that his proposal was very sensible and very well received, but as it involves the movements of other persons besides those of Her Majesty's Ministers it is, therefore, clearly a matter that cannot be rushed. The hon. Gentleman can be sure that this question will be kept in mind. Indeed, it is the sort of question that may well come up at the conference at Washington.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Prime Minister whether Her Majesty's Government will instruct the British representatives at the forthcoming interim meeting of Ministers to urge that recent events in East Germany underline the desirability of holding early four-power talks.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The policy of Her Majesty's Government on the subject of four-Power talks on Germany, by which my noble Friend will be guided in Washington, was stated most recently in the Prime Minister's message to the German Federal Chancellor and in the Minister of State's statement of 24th June in the House.

Mr. Irvine: While thanking the Chancellor for that answer, may I ask whether he will agree that it is the view of the Government that four-Power talks should take place at an early date and that the regretted indisposition of the Prime Minister cannot be regarded as a reason for delaying the preparations for them?

Mr. Butler: The talks on Germany were actually offered on 23rd September last, so there has been no backsliding on the part of the Government. Meanwhile, we have the talks in Washington, to which, I am sure, we all wish success.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDO-CHINA (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

Mr. Benn: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement as to the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the threat to peace constituted by the war in Indo-China which matter is on the agenda for the forthcoming meeting in Washington.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Her Majesty's Government have very much in mind the importance of Indo-China to the defence of South-East Asia, but I have no formal statement to make at present.

Mr. Benn: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that there will be no alteration in British policy towards Indo-China without its being indicated beforehand to the House of Commons.

Mr. Butler: I can give no general assurance of that sort at this stage. If I had a statement to make indicating there was an alteration with which the House should be acquainted I should make it now. I can only say that this matter and its importance will be discussed in the talks in Washington, and, no doubt, the House will wish a full report of those talks when my noble Friend returns. I can only give the usual assurance that the House will be kept informed of any major trends of policy undertaken by the Government.

Mr. A. Henderson: Will not the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, at least welcome the statement about Indo-China that was recently published on behalf of the Government of France?

Mr. Butler: I have not received any formal communication from the French Government of the steps taken by the French Government. Therefore, I can make no official statement; but Her Majesty's Government have been interested to see those developments.

Oral Answers to Questions — CROWN (PRIVATE ACTIONS)

Dr. King: asked the Attorney-General how many actions have been taken by private citizens against the Crown in the past 12 months.

The Attorney-General: Approximately 520 actions were commenced against the Crown in the High Court and county court during the 12 months ending on 31st May, 1953.

Dr. King: Since the Crown prosecutes parents who break the law by not sending their children to school, can the Attorney-General tell us whether that number includes parents who have prosecuted the Crown for not providing school places for their children?

The Attorney-General: I cannot give information about that, but perhaps the hon. Member will communicate with me.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-ITALIAN DISCUSSIONS

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the discussions with the Prime Minister of Italy.

The Secretary of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Signor De Gasperi came to this country to receive an honorary degree at Oxford, and the Prime Minister welcomed the opportunity of exchanging views on the international situation with this distinguished statesman. A general exchange of views took place, with particular reference to the conference then due to take place at Bermuda and to the prospects of the European Defence Community. The Prime Minister reaffirmed that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is to do their utmost to bring about the creation of the E.D.C. at the earliest possible date and to do all they can to support it and associate themselves with it.
In addition, I called on the Italian Prime Minister and had a discussion with him which followed similar lines.

TIMOTHY JOHN EVANS (MURDER CHARGE INQUIRY)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. G. H. R. ROGERS: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now able to state what decision he has made in regard to an inquiry into the trial and execution of Timothy John Evans for the murder of his child.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will answer Question No. 93.
I have this morning appointed Mr. John Scott Henderson, Q.C., to examine the evidence given in the case of R. v. Evans and that of R. v. Christie relating to the deaths of Mrs. Beryl Evans and of Geraldine Evans; to consider any other information which is, in his view, relevant to these deaths; and to report whether, in his opinion, there is any ground for thinking that there may have been any miscarriage of justice in the conviction of Evans for the murder of Geraldine Evans.
I have also appointed Mr. George Blackburn, Assistant Chief Constable of the West Riding, to assist Mr. Scott Henderson in the investigation.
Any communication for the tribunal should be sent to Mr. G. A. Peacock, of the Treasury Solicitor's Department, Storey's Gate, S.W.1, who will act as Secretary.
I should like to make it clear that Mr. Scott Henderson is in no way concerned with the conviction of Christie of the murder of Mrs. Christie. The due processes of law having been exhausted, it is now for me to consider whether or not to allow the law to take its course.
I hope that anyone in possession of relevant information relating to the deaths of Mrs. Evans or Geraldine Evans will communicate it without delay to the tribunal in the knowledge that information so given can in no way affect the ultimate decision in Christie's case.

Mr. Rogers: Is the Home Secretary aware that the whole country will, I think, applaud this wise decision to have an inquiry? I was not clear, however, from

what he said, whether the inquiry was to be in camera or to be an open one. Would he clear up that point?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have carefully considered the question of whether the inquiry should be held in public and have rejected it. Similar previous inquiries were held in private. It would, clearly, be wrong to examine in public Christie or any other person who wished to give information on this matter. It is essential to encourage people to come forward freely and contribute any information they may have. It is also essential that the procedure should be flexible and that any new lines should be speedily followed up. The responsibility for this decision is mine, but I have consulted Mr. Scott Henderson, who agrees, and says that to hold an investigation in public would make his task impossible.

Mr. Paton: Would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the latter part of his answer to the supplementary question? While the House would agree that it is essential that in an inquiry of this kind certain parts of it should be held in camera, surely, in view of the widespread public disquiet which has been aroused in this case, it would be far better if at least some important parts of the inquiry were held in public, and as much information given to the public as it is possible to give.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have considered this matter very carefully. The objective of the whole House is, subject to human frailty, to arrive at the truth, and I believe that this is the best method of reaching the truth. With regard to informing the public, the report will be published and will, no doubt, contain a summary of the information on which the conclusions were based.

Mr. Woodburn: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether the proceedings will be carried out according to the law of evidence, as previous tribunals have been loose in their behaviour? Will the inquiry be strictly conducted?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am quite sure that the procedure will be according to the rules of natural justice. The law of evidence is a very complicated code, with formalities of various sorts which may


or may not be appropriate, and I should not like to give a ruling on the exact legal point.

Mr. H. Morrison: While congratulating the Home Secretary on the course he has taken, and while not necessarily dissenting from this point, may I ask whether he would be good enough to tell the House the reason for associating Mr. Blackburn with the inquiry, and what his duties and status will be in relation to Mr. Scott Henderson?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: In the first place, the House will have noticed that Mr. Blackburn is the Assistant Chief Constable of the West Riding police force. As the Metropolitan police force had been concerned with the trial, it seemed to me right to take an experienced officer, especially experienced in detective work, from another force. His work will be to make preliminary investigation on any lines that arise—any matters that are submitted by any person—and that information will go to Mr. Scott Henderson, who will then consider what inquiries are necessary. It may even be useful that a preliminary inquiry should be made by an experienced police officer. That has also happened in other inquiries—that a new line has appeared to open up which wanted further inquiry and that inquiry could usefully be done by an experienced detective officer. That will be done, and Mr. Blackburn will also be a useful liaison between any of the police officers involved in the case.

Mr. Morrison: We may take it, therefore, from what the Home Secretary has said, that Mr. Blackburn will be subordinate to Mr. Scott Henderson and subject to his direction?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: That is so.

Mr. Willey: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman had an opportunity of considering the request which I made last Thursday, that in view of the interest in the Evans case and the conclusions drawn from it, rightly or wrongly, a transcript of the evidence in that case should be placed in the Library?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am sorry that I did not realise that the hon. Gentleman meant a transcript of the trial. I thought he had in mind—I am sure the fault is mine—a transcript of the proceedings of

an inquiry, and I would ask him whether, on the other question, he would allow me a day or two to think it over.

Mr. Paget: Can the Home Secretary tell us whether, historically, a private inquiry ever has exposed a great miscarriage of justice? Is it not a fact that all the great miscarriages of justice have been exposed by the fierce light of publicity, which is being denied here?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I cannot possibly assent to such a generalisation.

Mr. Benn: Would the Home Secretary consider associating one or two lay assessors with this tribunal, in view of the fact that the Attorney-General, the Home Office, the legal profession and the police are interested parties in the case?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have, as I said, after very careful consideration decided that a one-man inquiry by a very experienced lawyer with great criminal and judicial experience is the best method. The House will see that I have taken a Queen's counsel and a recorder and not a judge, because the judiciary, of course, took part in the trial and the appeal. I have taken a police officer from another force, I have taken a secretary from the Treasury Solicitors' Office and not from the Home Office, and I think the House as a whole will realise that I have done everything to see that the inquiry shall be of the most impartial and thorough nature.

Mr. J. T. Price: Since it is obvious that proper consideration of this serious matter cannot be given in complete isolation from certain aspects of the Christie case, has the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman been drawn to an article in a Sunday newspaper yesterday purporting to be the last confessions of Christie? Can he say what special facilities were given to the newspaper, if any, to take down those confessions, and whether the confessions will be heard as evidence at the inquiry which is now to take place?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: That is a different question, of which I should like notice, but I have already asked that any information about the Evans case should be sent at once to the secretary of the tribunal, and I now repeat that appeal.

NEW MEMBER

Edith Maud Pitt, for Birmingham, Edgbaston.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Crookshank.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[19TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1953–54

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £20, be granted to Her Majesty towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Cadet entry into Dartmouth Naval College for the year ending on 31st March, 1954, namely:

Navy Estimates, 1953–54



£


Navy Estimates, Vote 5, Education Services
10


Navy Estimates, Vote 12, Admiralty Office
10


Total
£20

Orders of the Day — DARTMOUTH NAVAL COLLEGE (CADET ENTRY)

3.43 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan: The Opposition have asked for the debate today because the House has recently had presented to it a Report on Cadet Entry into the Royal Navy by a Committee set up by the First Lord about a year ago. We have asked for the debate at this moment because we fear that there is a prospect of the Navy making a serious mistake in its attitude towards the recruitment of officers, a mistake which might lead it to lose the confidence, in so far as it has not already been forfeited, of a great number of scholastic institutions in this country. We wish, therefore, to focus public opinion upon the Report and to bring out the issues involved in it.
There is no doubt that recruitment of officers to the Navy since the war has fallen off. The first question that one must ask is whether the Service is unattractive, or more unattractive than it was. This question concerned the Committee which the First Lord set up, and they reached the conclusion, with which I agree, that the Service as such is not unattractive and that the prospects of remuneration and the possibilities of promotion are such as to be equivalent to those of other professions.
To paraphrase the Committee's words, the financial rewards in the Navy do not


compare unfavourably with those which are to be secured in industry. I do not know whether there will be any disposition on the part of any hon. Members to challenge the finding of the Committee. I should not wish to do so. I believe that, broadly speaking, there is little doubt that the Navy should be able to attract the type of man it wants in order to build up its officer cadre, and so I should return a negative answer to that question.
Therefore, it seems to me that we must turn to the next aspect of the question. If conditions in the Navy are not unsatisfactory, and if they ought to be able to attract, as I believe they should, persons to do the job, then, if the men are not coming forward, the only conclusion that one can reach is that the Admiralty are not setting about getting them in the right way. That seems to me to be a conclusion that the Committee reaches, and I certainly find myself subscribing to it. It is the more surprising because only a small number of officers is required, 200 to 250 every year, drawn from the age groups of 16, 17 and 18. It is a remarkably small number by comparison with the number of boys between those ages leaving school every year. It is, therefore, the more surprising that we have had the fall in the number of officer recruits coming forward.
I am very glad—I must say this to the First Lord now—that he set up the Committee. That is not what I said when he set it up. I am glad, not because of some of the conclusions that have been reached, but because of the Committee's analysis of the situation. They have done an excellent job of work in analysing the reasons boys are not coming forward and in explaining some of the difficulties that stand in the way. Even if it were for nothing else but that, I should say that this Committee, to the setting up of which I was opposed, has done a valuable job, for it has produced a Report which analyses more completely than I have ever seen analysed the officer prospects in the Royal Navy. I should like the Committee to know that I withdraw at any rate part of the criticism that I made when it was set up.
What is clear is that the Committee, which was set up, let it be remembered, in the atmosphere that the 16-year-old

entry had failed, finds that neither type of entry today is producing the men who ought to be produced. I hope the First Lord will forgive me for quoting a number of passages from the Report, but they are worth it. Paragraph 31 of the Report says:
Although 18 is considered the ideal age of entry … it is clear from the figures given … that the Special Entry has … not been much more successful than the Entry at 16 in filling the vacancies or in encouraging the entry of the right boys from all types of school.
I did not appreciate until I read the Report that both the 16-plus entry and the special entry, the 18-year-old entry, are falling short of the number of vacancies allotted to them. The actual percentages, according to the Report, are that the 18-year-old entry are down by 13 per cent. on the number of vacancies to be filled and the 16-year-old group are down by 15·4 per cent. There is not a lot in it, but what the Committee has exposed is that we are facing a general shortage of officer recruits both in the 16-year-old and the 18-year-old groups. I do not think that public opinion has yet caught up with the Report in exposing this particular decision, and I do not use the word "expose" in any way derogatory to the Committee's Report.
A letter from the headmaster of Eton recently to "The Times" referred to the failure of the 16-year-old entry and Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton, in a letter to "The Times" this morning, says:
The Report admits the failure of the 16-year-old entry.
But the problem is wider than that. He does not say whether he is referring to the number or the quality—a subject about which I shall have something to say later—of the entrants. So far as the number is concerned, both the headmaster of Eton and Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton, who is writing as the Chairman of the Navy League, miss the point in the Report that the shortage of naval officer recruits extends to both sources of entry to the Navy, 13 per cent. in the case of the 18-year-olds and 15·4 per cent. in the case of the 16-year-olds. So it is a common problem to both. I do not think it is surprising in some ways. There is inevitably what we call war weariness and the reluctance to go into the Services after a war that has afflicted so many nations. I do not suppose that there will be any particular dispute about that.
The Report goes on to suggest that there are particular reasons why there should be this shortage and I think they are worth pointing out. In paragraph 28, the Report points out—and here again I had not fully appreciated the position—that we are dealing with an exceedingly small age group. The number of boys reaching the ages of 16 to 18, who were born in the years 1935, 1936 and 1937, is very small. They are, in fact, the ebb tide referred to in the Minority Report by Mr. Barraclough, with which I have a great deal of sympathy.
Mr. Barraclough shows quite clearly that in the next 18 years at least—and no one can forecast beyond that point—we shall never have so small a number of boys becoming 16, 17 and 18. Indeed, the number is going to rise quite phenomenally from the year 1960 onwards, from about 350,000 now to 500,000 then. That obviously must make a difference to the number of candidates coming forward, and I think it is worth while emphasising that the number of candidates coming forward has already started to move up. That was apparent in the last examination, and if the number of boys reaching the examination stage continues to increase, there is a reasonable prospect also of the number of candidates continuing to increase.
The second point that the Committee's Report brings out is the publicity failure of the Admiralty, especially in connection with the 16-year-old examinations. For that my right hon. Friends and myself must take their share of responsibility, because we launched the examination in 1948. I am anxious that there should not develop a party wrangle over this Report. I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I am developing this case in such a way as to try to emphasise the benefits and weaknesses of the scheme, and not to make any party points on it. I should therefore say that it would have been better if we ourselves had gone forward with a big publicity campaign in order to popularise the 16-plus examination. However, it is now open to the First Lord to do that instead, and he is recommended to do so by the Committee's Report.
The third reason the Committee advanced for the small number of candidates is that there is little enthusiasm among headmasters for sending their boys forward, and the fault is that there is a feeling that the interviewing board—and this applies to the 16-year-old examinations—is biased against the secondary grammar school boy. Those two particular reasons hang together.
I should like now to return to the publicity angle, and put to the First Lord one or two suggestions that the Committee makes and which I regard as of value. There is, first of all, the suggestion that he should bring the examination for the 16-year-olds into line with the curricula of the schools from which they are drawn. That seems to me to be an elementary suggestion, and something which I should have thought should certainly take place. The second recommendation, which is made in paragraph 270, is that there should be an advisory panel of educationalists who would be able to keep abreast of the changes in educational curricula, and be able to advise the First Lord on what changes should be made in the nature and conditions of the examination in order to ensure that the two things do not get out of hand.
Thirdly, in paragraph 103 they suggest a closer liaison with the Civil Service Commissioners who, after all, run the special entry examinations for the Navy at the present time. The fourth suggestion, which is in paragraph 74, is that the age of entry at which entrants are recruited should be the widest maximum age, and that the age range should be increased. For myself, I cannot see why the 16-year-old entry and the special entry at 18 should not touch. At the moment the gap between the 16-year-old entry and the 18-year-old entry is almost two years, and I have never been able to understand why that should be. I should have thought that the upper examination should take over where the lower examination left off. I do not see any reason for having a gap between the ages of recruitment, and I suggest that the First Lord should so remodel the system that it would provide recruits between the ages of 16 and 18, and if possible there should be devised such an examination system as would cover whatever age seemed to be appropriate.
I do not know why, on some of the recommendations made by the Committee, particularly those on administrative questions, there should not be decisions made straight away. A number of those things should have been done before, and there is no reason why the Admiralty should not go ahead now and put some of the recommendations into force, particularly if the First Lord agrees with them. If he does not agree with them, I hope he will tell us why, and we shall be very glad to hear it.
I want now to return to the third and fourth reasons why there is a small number of candidates coming forward. The Committee say that, first of all, there is little enthusiasm among headmasters to send forward candidates, and secondly, that the interviewing board is biased against the secondary grammar school boy. This 16-year-plus entry introduced in 1948 was a new entry, and was designed for a special purpose—to catch the 16-year-plus boy who had got his general certificate of education and who expected to leave school at that time.
It was not designed for the public school boy who was half-way through his public school education, and it was not designed to take him in at the age of 16. It was intended that he should take the 18-year-old examination. The 16-plus examination was brought in for the very good reason that, of the boys attaining the age of 16, by far the largest number leave school at 16-plus with a general certificate of education, and they represent a field which it was felt at the time could provide a very satisfactory source of recruitment for the Navy.
Viscount Hall, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, put it in this way, when he announced the scheme:
The new educational system of the country, designed as it is to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity of securing the best education he is capable of absorbing, makes it possible to afford the opportunity of becoming a naval officer to boys from all classes of the community who possess the qualities of mind and the potential leadership required by the Royal Navy.
It was for such boys that the examination was designed.
Very large numbers came forward for the first examination—I think the largest field ever—and nearly all of them failed. Eventually a handful got through. A

large number passed the written examination but they failed at the interview, and from that time onwards the number of boys coming forward from that examination has declined considerably. At the same time, the number of boys from public schools taking that examination has increased and we have now reached the position, never intended when the scheme was designed, that the public school boys are taking by far the largest number of vacancies at 16-plus, as well as taking them at the special entry at 18. I think we must look at the reason for this.
The key to it is the interview board. On the written results of both the 16 and the 18-year-old examination, there is a margin of superiority in favour of the public school boy, but it is only a margin. There is not a substantial difference, as the Report says, between the written results of the public school boy at 16-plus and the written results of the secondary grammar school boy at 16-plus. The failures take place at the interview, and it is upon this that the Report has concentrated a lot of attention, in my view rightly so. The Committee has subjected the interview boards to considerable criticism.

Commander J. W. Maitland: If I may interrupt the hon. Gentleman, he is making the point that a lot of places in the 16-plus entry are taken up by the public schools. I would suggest that there is an easier reason than the one he has given. As a result of abolishing the 13½-entry, it is almost inevitable that boys who are anxious to go into the Navy will take the first opportunity of doing so.

Mr. Callaghan: That is partially true. I do not know much about public schools, apart from an occasional visit, and neither does the hon. Gentleman. His education ceased at an early age, too, because he went to Dartmouth, although I would not wish to say anything against Dartmouth, as he knows.
Another reason is that, with the pressure of financial difficulties, a number of parents have been ready to take their children away from public schools and send them to Dartmouth, if they get the opportunity, because of the favourable financial treatment they get there. I should think that the bias of a headmaster is all against a boy being taken away once he is in the middle of his public school education. It is the case


that the examination was designed for the secondary grammar school boy and it is being filled largely by the public school entry. The reasons for that we can discuss at our leisure at some other time.
What does the Report say, and what do witnesses say, about the interview board? They have some scathing things to say and I want to indicate what they are. In paragraph 165 the Committee includes a note made by the Ulster Headmasters Association which they submitted, as follows:
The best publicity is the acceptance of good candidates, and the worst publicity is their rejection. When a boy who has been warmly recommended by his headmaster and who is widely regarded in the community as a fine type of boy whom the Navy ought to be glad to accept is in fact rejected on interview, and that without any explanation to him, to his parents or to his school, it is all too easy for others, parents, schoolmasters and boys alike, to decide to risk no further discouragement.
I am sure that is right, and it is the case that boys whom their schools regard as first-class have come to the interview board and have failed lamentably there.
On the attitude of the board the Committee, in paragraph 116, acquits them of conscious bias against boys from any type of school or social class. The significant word to me there is not the word "bias" but the word "conscious." I think that here we are getting near the truth. In paragraph 130 a naval witness, a member of a past Admiralty board, wrote that in his view there had been "unwitting unfairness" to a small number of boys who had been at a disadvantage educationally and socially. He said there had been "unwitting unfairness"; the Committee said there had been "no conscious bias." If hon. Members will forgive me, I want to read an Admiralty minute which I dictated in 1951 before that Committee was set up, which I hope is still on the Admiralty files—[An HON. MEMBER: "Is that in order?"] It is quite in order. It said this:
I cannot get rid of the feeling that there is an unconscious bias … against the Secondary Grammar School product who has a provincial speech, a rugged manner and is on the borderline between success and failure. I do not think for one moment that any boy who is well over the top in the examination results would suffer because of these characteristics, but I think there is quite a chance that

although the Admiralty Interview Board will strive to overcome their own bias, nevertheless a borderline boy from an Independent School stands more chance of success than a borderline boy from a Secondary Grammar School.
There is certainly a melancholy consolation in finding that one's own feelings at the time have been confirmed two years later by a Committee of this kind. My only regret is that in the intervening two years no notice has been taken of that or of a great many other suggestions contained in it, about publicity and the like, designed to improve the position that existed then and exists now.
It is interesting to see that the Committee says in paragraph 122:
Some of our witnesses … contend that some of the naval members of the Board, in particular, have not succeeded in getting below the superficial characteristics of these boys, which were often unimpressive, and have not appreciated the extent to which their potentialities can sometimes be obscured because of their backgrounds.
It goes on to say something which only emphasises the point, so I need not quote that. I am afraid that there has been an unconscious bias in favour of the public school boy with a smooth manner and the polish that is given by the public schools, as against the boy from a secondary grammar school with a provincial accent and a rugged manner. I held that view after I had seen the interview boards at work. It is confirmed by the Report of the Committee. I think it is almost inevitable.
Naval officers in the past have been drawn from a certain social background, a middle class or upper middle class background. When they get candidates before them, hear them, and see the boy who comes from the same type of family, who can talk about the same kind of things and perhaps knows the same kind of people, inevitably they feel a warmth towards him that they do not feel towards some rugged, rough, unpolished young man from a secondary grammar school of which they have never heard, in some obscure town which has no connection with the Navy in any way.
I hope I am putting the case fairly. I think it is inevitable that this kind of thing should happen and I am confirmed in my belief by the Report before us. If I may sum it up in a word, it is snobbery.

Commander Harry Pursey: They want the "posh" boys.

Mr. Callaghan: It shows a weakness on the part of the interview boards in failing to penetrate below the surface and find the real qualities of boys with whom perhaps they have had very little contact. The result, in terms of figures, has been simply this, that of all the boys who pass the written examination, no matter what their origins, if they come from a public school they stand a 68 per cent. chance of getting through the oral examination, and if they come from a secondary grammar school they stand a 28 per cent. chance of getting through it. I just do not believe that, as between the two types of boys of equal scholastic ability, there is all that difference in potential leadership, characteristics of integrity, and the rest of it, that the Navy wants.
The problem of the First Lord is how to restore confidence among the secondary grammar schools that their boys stand a fair chance when they come before the interview board. I am not associating myself with some of the wilder criticisms that have appeared in some of the organs of public opinion about the methods of selection of the interview board. I know they have tried to do their job properly, and as far as I am concerned some of the criticisms that have appeared have been quite out of this world.
The fact still remains, however, that for the 16-plus examination, the Admiralty interview board has forfeited the confidence of secondary grammar schools. That is why a wide stream of candidates for this examination has, comparatively speaking, now become a mere trickle. How is the First Lord going to restore the confidence of the secondary grammar schools, and their headmasters and would-be candidates, in the possibility that their products will be fairly treated when they come before the interview board? It is a most serious matter for the right hon. Gentleman, and I should like to hear what he has to say.
The Report is in no doubt about the job that the Minister has to do. I ask hon. Members to turn to paragraphs 51 and 52, where the Committee says:
… it has been impressed upon the Committee by almost every witness that the Admiralty has not succeeded in convincing the public of its sincere desire to recruit officers from all possible sources.

That is the Committee speaking, and not me. Then, in paragraph 52:
The development of public confidence in the Admiralty is, however, not only a matter of improved relations with the public. It has been impressed upon us that the arrangements for the competitions … should be considerably revised if more candidates are to be attracted.
That is the problem. It is because we regard this as of the greatest seriousness that we have asked for this debate this afternnoon.
The first thing that I suggest to the First Lord—I do not know that I should have held this view three or four years ago, but I certainly hold it now—it that he ought to hand over the control and administration of this examination to the Civil Service Commissioners. There would be nothing very revolutionary about that. The Civil Service Commissioners already run the 18-year-old examination, and have run it for years. I am not sure whether they have run it since its inception; at any rate, they have run it for as long as I can remember. There would be nothing particularly revolutionary that would be likely to give any admiral a form of apoplectic fit if the Civil Service Commissioners were to administer this examination also. Had they not forfeited the confidence of the public, there would be a case for the Admiralty retaining hold of this examination, but now that it has got to this position, I suggest that the case is made out for them to hand over.
I should like to make another point about the examination. I want to say this in fairness to the Navy. Once the boys are through and once they are in Dartmouth, there is, as far as I know, no discrimination whatever between any of the boys. In the scholarship scheme days, I believe that some of the scholarship boys were called "red students" and the others were "blue students"—those were the phrases that went round. As far as I know, that has completely gone, and certainly once the boys get on and get into the Navy there is no discrimination against them, no matter from where they come. They are judged on their merits once they are in, and they are all doing fairly well.
In relation to that, I should like to say one more word about the suggestion that the 16-year-olds have failed. I view this with considerable scepticism because


those who opposed the scheme have been saying it almost since the scheme started. Remember that the scheme has been going only since 1948. When I got to the Admiralty in 1950, I was told that the 16-year-old scheme had failed. They were not only talking about the numbers, but about the quality of the entries at that time. That, of course, is not so. I ask the First Lord to give us his views upon the quality, as distinct from the numbers, of the 16-year-old entry. I hope he will feel, as the Report itself says in paragraph 20, that
The only evidence of comparable performance which is available is the Training Cruiser passing-out marks for four cruises in 1951 and 1952.
The 1948 entry, of course, did not go to the cruiser until 1950 and they passed out in 1951. The 1949 entry went in 1951 and passed out in 1952. They are the first batches. Paragraph 20 continues:
These show no significant differences in officer-like qualities between the cadets who entered at 13, at 16 or by Special Entry. This conclusion has been supported by the general views of the naval witnesses we have seen.
So that, numbers apart—the shortage, I have demonstrated, applies to all types of entry—there is nothing to choose in quality. If the First Lord has anything to gainsay that, I hope he will say it now, but I do not believe that there is anything to gainsay it.
That brings me, again, to the two letters, which I read with considerable surprise. Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton says:
The Report admits the failure of the 16-year-old entry.
The Report admits nothing of the sort. The Report says that the 16 and 18-year-olds are both equally short in numbers, but the Report goes on to say that the 16 and 18-year-olds are equal in quality as far as can be judged so far.
When a top letter in "The Times" this morning from the Chairman and General Secretary of the Navy League can make such a basic error as that, it seems to me that there is a lot of education of public opinion to be done. I very much regret to find myself differing from Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton, because I know that the Navy League does a lot of good work; but I am afraid that the

Navy League's approach to this is that of a great many other senior officers in the Service.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Commander Allan Noble): I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but I think he would like to be fair to the Committee. He said earlier that the object of the 16-plus entry was to attract boys at that age from the grammar schools. Would not the fact that it has failed to do that mean that it had failed in some way in what it set out to do?

Mr. Callaghan: If I were to go into that, I should merely repeat a number of the arguments I have already put forward, but I do not wish to weary the Committee by doing that. I thought we were all agreed that it has failed, as the 18-year-old entry has failed, to produce sufficient numbers. I spent a rather long time abusing the Admiralty——

Mr. W. T. Proctor: The Parliamentary Secretary was not listening.

Mr. Callaghan: —for failing to make the proper arrangements for this examination. That, I think, is the reason the numbers have fallen short. The Admiralty has not sold its wares sufficiently and has led the public to believe that it does not really want these boys. I do not wish to go into that any further—I would rather pass that point—but that is the whole gravamen of my charge on this section of the Report.
My case and my attitude is that the 16-plus entry has never been given a fair chance. When I got to the Admiralty after the scheme had been running for two years, I found the admirals sucking their teeth about it. There are a lot of people—[Interruption.] I beg pardon. I withdraw that expression if it offends the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn): I was explaining it to one of my right hon. Friends.

Commander Pursey: It will not improve with the hon. Gentleman's explanation.

Mr. Callaghan: I feel that a number of senior officers in the Admiralty are


more concerned with getting the preparatory school boy and the public school boy at the age of 13½ than with judging this scheme fairly. It has never been wholly accepted by a number of senior officers at the Admiralty.
It is interesting to note, in connection with the proposal to restore the examination for the 13-year-olds, that five out of 11 members of the Committee express the view in paragraph 307 that if the administrative arrangements are improved and confidence is restored, there will be sufficient candidates coming forward. In paragraph 306 the Report says:
At this point the signatories of this Majority Report are almost evenly divided. Six of us, including our two naval members, consider that the present deficiencies … are so great that it is doubtful whether they can ever be remedied …
but five, as the Report says in paragraph 307,
… are confident that the necessary numbers would become available as a result of our recommendations.
I hope the First Lord will not mind if I repeat what I saw in an educational journal the other day—this would not have occurred to me if I had not seen it elsewhere—that in fact six had a direct allegiance to the Admiralty and five had not.
There is no doubt that there has been considerable pressure from the top of the Admiralty to the bottom to restore the 13-year-old entry. I am sure the First Lord will not dissent from that. I regret very much that this scheme has been condemned by senior officers in the Navy before it has had a fair trial and before a single 16-year-old entry has become a sub-lieutenant. When they finish in the college they go to a training cruiser as midshipmen, and the condemnation has come out before they qualify as sublieutenants. That is why I am not surprised that secondary grammar schools have lost confidence in the desire of the Admiralty to secure the best candidates, no matter from where they come.

Mr. Frederick Cough: The hon. Member spoke about the loss of confidence by secondary grammar schools before. I ask him to turn to page 7 of the Report, which says that the total number of candidates in the first three competitions from the maintained grammar schools was 679. That, I

assume, was the "flood" to which the hon. Member referred earlier. Then the Report states that the total number from the three most recent competitions is 651. I take it that the latter number is "the trickle" to which he referred. I wonder if he would explain it.

Mr. Callaghan: I think the reason lies largely in the substantial increase in the last of the three examinations. I do not carry the figures with me, but it certainly was so when I was at the Admiralty. The number of candidates coming forward was rapidly diminishing very much indeed, as could be ascertained if the First Lord were asked for the figures. I think that the age grouping may have made a difference and this, taken with the publicity which has attended the affairs of the board, may have made a substantial difference to the number of candidates coming forward. I did not realise that the difference was so small as the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough) has pointed out, but this is not my criticism; it is stated in the Report that the numbers have been less.

Mr. Raymond Gower: Would the hon. Member agree that, in addition to the reasons he has cited from paragraph 165 of the Report, other reasons were also given which would not arise from the examining body?

Mr. Callaghan: I would not be surprised; I do not carry all these reasons in my head. I am sure that is so, but I was picking out the major reasons and these seem to be concerned with
unwillingness to enter a career or an unusual social milieu. …
I am not presenting the whole Report; that is not my job, thank goodness, but is the task of the First Lord.
The Majority Report has come forward in the last analysis with a proposal for what the Committee calls a new scheme under which there will not be an entry to the Navy at 13½ but an entry to Dartmouth at 13½. Boys will not be committed to entering the Navy until they reach the age of 18, but it is confidently expected that those who go to Dartmouth at 13½ will enter the Navy at 18. That seems to be a distinction without a difference.
The Committee also recommends a quota of 60 per cent. for secondary grammar school boys. I will not comment on that because I am opposed to age


13½ entry. It is wrong and it reverses the tide to fix the age at 13½, which is not a natural change-point for the secondary school boy, although it may be for a preparatory school boy going to a public school. The secondary grammar school boy will have been in the school 18 months or two years, and will be well up in the school, moving ahead and established in his career. One feels that any examination at 13½ would be bound to create either an indifferent number of entries at that age from secondary grammar school boys because it is not a natural change-point, with the result that the vacancies would not be filled; or, alternatively, would lead to the quota for preparatory school boys being increased very soon because the First Lord would find he has not sufficient candidates. I hope he will reject the proposal.
Paragraph 360 continues on the need for public opinion to be associated with the change by saying:
We cannot, however, emphasise too strongly that the crux of the entire problem is whether there can be created in the educational world, and among the public generally, a greater confidence that the Navy is determined to recruit its future officers from the nation at large.
Public educationists are against it. Dr. Alexander has written a most scathing commentary on the decision in the "Teacher's World" and the magazine "Education" has an editorial condemning the proposal. I think it is clear that when the First Lord meets the educationists he will find a hostile reception among them, except of course from Mr. Birley, who is very much in favour of the proposal, as are all the Headmasters' Conference and the preparatory schools. They want to go back to the old system but their interests are not the interests of the First Lord and not necessarily the interests of the Navy.
The right hon. Gentleman will find that educationists associated with the secondary grammar schools of the country are opposed to this system of examination. In those circumstances, the Committee envisages what ought to be the reaction of the First Lord and it says in the concluding paragraph of the Report:
if, contrary to our hopes, the considered reaction. …

these are the people who recommended the examination—
…. of informed opinion is adverse, we believe that it might do the Navy more harm than good to adopt a revised scheme of entry, however good it may be in itself, in the teeth of public and educational opinion.
That is the view of the Committee which recommended this new examination. I say to the First Lord that, if he gets this examination, in my view he will get it at the cost of sacrificing public confidence. He will not have the confidence of headmasters and will not have the confidence of educationists generally. They will believe, as they believe now—and in my view rightly believe—that a number of senior officers in the Navy are extremely anxious to preserve the right of entry to the Navy for the public school product and the preparatory school product.
The First Lord may find—he is so far uncommitted—that he will get the examination at 13½ at the cost of a large number of candidates on whom at a later stage the Navy might want to rely. They hanker after the public school entry. I do not mind the public schoolboy having a fair show in the Navy, but I do mind him having more than a fair show. What I want to see in the Navy is the best product, no matter from where he may come. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am sure that is shared on both sides of the Committee. I do not see how we can possibly do that if we fail to secure the confidence of secondary grammar school masters and educationists generally, as we shall not do if they believe that there is still this hankering after the preparatory and public school product. For those reasons, I hope that when the First Lord has considered this matter further he will turn it down. He is uncommitted at the present time.
We all wish to do our best for the Navy in this field. The Parliamentary Secretary is not particularly interested in the 13-year-old entry. I see a number of naval officers here and I single out two of them who happen to suit my purpose. Two of the brightest luminaries among them are the hon. and gallant Member for Merton and Morden (Captain Ryder) and the Parliamentary Secretary. Neither of them is a Dartmouth product. Both of them entered by special entry and both of them are great credits to the Navy. [Interruption.] I think that everybody


on this side of the Committee, on the whole, has come up from the lower deck. That seems to me the best way, but that is outside our terms of reference this afternoon.
I say to the First Lord, in conclusion, that the long-term interest of the Navy demands that we shall get the best boys. We can do so by going where the largest number of them are leaving school, which is at the ages of 16, 17 and 18. That is where they are to be found. Do not let us have any jiggery-pokery about trying to get a number of preparatory schoolboys in at an early age just because a number of senior naval officers, rightly or wrongly, think that we have got to "catch 'em young." They have been saying that for years and they will go on saying it for years to come—that if we put up the age for going to sea the Navy will go to pieces. I have heard that argument so often, but having seen what happened, it makes very little impression on me.
The First Lord is being asked to take a most important decision. He is being asked to ensure, with equality of opportunity, that the Navy gets the best men. We say to him, with all the firmness that we can, that we believe that he should stick to the present system and give it a proper trial, making the administrative reforms which he should make in the light of the Report; and after another five years we shall be in a position to see whether the falling-off of recruitment to the Navy is a transient phase or whether it is more permanent. I do not believe that it is permanent. I believe that if we go about it in the right way we can get all the men we need to do the job for us.

4.33 p.m.

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. J. P. L. Thomas): It may be useful if I intervene at this stage and tell the House how the Report stands at present so far as the Admiralty is concerned. I am most grateful to the Opposition for giving us this opportunity to debate the subject today. By doing so they have allowed hon. Members an opportunity, which is otherwise unlikely to arise owing to the crowded nature of our programme up to the Recess, of giving their views on the Report on the cadet entry to the Royal Navy.
As has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), the Committee recommended

that their Report, and especially their new scheme of entry, should be laid before the bar of public opinion. I gladly accepted that recommendation. One of my reasons for doing so was that I was anxious to hear the opinions of this House before the Admiralty made its decisions. But precisely because the Admiralty has agreed to test public opinion in this way, I should warn the Committee that I have really little to add today to what the Parliamentary Secretary said to the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) last month, when he said that I was arranging to hear the views of the educational interests of the country and that until I had done so I should not be able to make a statement on the Report as a whole.
I am having my first conference with the teaching profession and the organisations representing local authorities and education committees tomorrow afternoon. This first meeting is bound to be exploratory, and I am certain that they will ask for more time before they give their considered judgment, and I fear it is unlikely that I shall be able to make a final statement to the House until after we reassemble again following the Parliamentary Recess. I doubt whether hon. Members would wish the Admiralty to hurry over this whole question.
The very length of the Report shows how very thorough and careful the Committee's examination has been, for which the Admiralty is most grateful to the Members of the Committee. I will certainly see that the withdrawal by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East of his objection to the Committee is conveyed to them. I agree with him that they have made, whether we agree with its recommendations or not, an excellent analysis.
This Report does not merit snap decisions by the Admiralty, and to those who suggested in the Press that we should get on with the job and not wait any longer, I would say that this whole subject of cadet entry into the Royal Navy has been living in a very uncertain atmosphere for a considerable time and that both my immediate predecessor and I were anxious to produce at least a more settled climate, with the one object, which we all share, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East mentioned, of doing what is best for the Navy.
As I told the House when I announced that I was setting up a Committee, and


as is apparent from the figures given in Chapter I of the Committee's Report, the present methods have for some lime been unsuccessful in giving us all the boys of the quality which we need, and we have been taking too many boys who have passed only by a narrow margin and have been only just good enough. It was for that reason that, after consulting my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, I decided to set up this Committee to report on the best means and methods which would fit in with the modern organisation and curricula of the schools and at the same time satisfy the Navy's need to get the best possible officers.
From some of the comments on the Report which I have read in the Press, and also from one or two of the remarks which fell from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, I have got the feeling that there is an impression abroad that this is a battle ground between the admirals and the schoolmasters, that there is a perpetual state of war between the wishes of the Navy and the convenience of the educational profession. That is not the case, and I for one do not despair of finding a solution which will give the Navy the best officers and at the same time will fit in with the present educational structure in the country.
The Committee's Report falls into two main parts. First, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said, there are the recommendations for improving the existing methods of entry; and, second, the scheme which the Committee put forward for a new kind of entry at the age of 13. I wish I could announce today the decisions on all the recommendations in the first part of the Report, but we have not had the Report for very long at the Admiralty, and some of the recommendations are pretty complicated and also involve a good many technical problems from the administrative point of view. I can assure the Committee however that the Admiralty is wasting no time in examining all the recommendations in Part I of the Report, and I shall announce the decisions as soon as they are reached.
I can, however, answer the question asked of me by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East. We have decided to accept in principle what is perhaps the most significant of the recommendations in the first part of the Report, that relating to granting exemption from the

written examination both for the Special Entry and for the entry at the age of 16, on the strength of specified performances in the examinations for the General Certificate of Education in England and Wales, and in the corresponding examinations in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I am sure that hon. Gentlemen will agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East and myself that this will make things considerably easier for a boy who wishes to enter the Navy but at the same time naturally wishes to safeguard his prospects for any other career that he may wish to take up if he should fail to get into the Navy. The criticism has been that our examinations were inclined to be out of step with the normal school courses and needed a certain amount of special preparation for the Navy. I believe that the acceptance of the recommendation of the Dartmouth Committee will remedy this trouble.
The Board of Admiralty have also accepted the recommendation relating to setting up a standing liaison committee on which the schools and local education authorities would be represented and which would bring the Admiralty into closer relationship with the educational world. That will do nothing but good.
While I am on this subject I would say how impressed I was with the emphasis laid by the Committee on the need to maintain public interest in the career of an officer in the Royal Navy and to win the confidence of the public, and in particular of people directly concerned with education, in the Admiralty's method of cadet recruitment, and above all, in the sincerity of the Admiralty's wish to obtain the best boys in the Navy, whatever their background or wherever they may come from.
The hon. Member mentioned the Admiralty interview board's procedure in this respect, and the Committee may be interested to know that before the publication of this Report the Admiralty Interview Board had modified their procedure in ways designed to bring about the reform recommended by the Committee. Reports by headmasters are now taken much more fully into account when candidates are being interviewed than was the case in the past. Final assessment of individual candidates is now postponed until the end of the whole


sequence of interviews. I have impressed upon the Board that they must look well below the surface in regard to the boys who have come from the non-preparatory school.

Mr. Callaghan: Are the Admiralty accepting the recommendation that headmasters' reports should be available to members of the interview board before they see the men?

Mr. Thomas: That is also the case. The hon. Member mentioned the lack of confidence that is felt by headmasters in the procedure for the age-16 entry. The Admiralty had already decided that only serving or recently retired headmasters should be part of the interview board. Accordingly, the age-16 board last May had on it a headmaster with a direct grant school background, from King Edward's School, Birmingham. The next age-16 board will have on it the headmaster from St. Clement Dane's School, London, a maintained grammar school. Recommendation 31, that headmasters should be allowed to watch the board at work, has already been implemented. The headmaster of King's School, Macclesfield, is to be present at a meeting of the next age-16 board as an observer and I am sure that others will follow his example. If they saw the board at work it would go some way to re-establish their confidence, if they have lost it, in the examination for the age-16 entry.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the age band. That is a question that the Admiralty are on now, and I cannot give a final decision. We are tackling that problem very urgently. The last chapter of the Committee's Report dealing with the new entry scheme and the minority Report have attracted most attention inside the House and in the country. The debate has largely concentrated, as it should, on this subject. This is the chapter which the Committee wanted, as they said, brought before the bar of public opinion. Hon. Members probably realise my position in this debate. We do not want to take any decisions on these very important recommendations until we have heard the views of this House, of educational bodies and of members of the public, who are rightly airing their views in the Press at the moment. I cannot do more this afternoon than assure hon. Members that we shall give the most careful consideration to all the points that

they have raised in all quarters of the House, and if it is possible to answer some of these points they will be answered at the end of the debate. I repeat that I hope to be in a position to announce a decision soon after the House comes back from the Parliamentary Recess.
Once again, I would repeat my gratitude, and that of the Admiralty, for the Opposition's making it possible for us to have an opportunity to debate this matter at this early stage, so that the Admiralty might hear the views expressed from all quarters of the House.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey: I think the Committee will all be agreed on one thing, and that is the importance of the subject which we are discussing. It is one sector of the general question of the selection of officers for the Armed Forces, and it is a matter for which Parliament should show the greatest solicitude. After all, we are dealing with the most precious human material that one can imagine.
The selection of officers is unquestionably an absolutely crucial and decisive factor in the Forces' efficiency. If this overwhelmingly naval audience will forgive an example from the War Office, I would relate that when I was at the War Office I remember asking Sir William Slim the then C.I.G.S. about the disasters suffered by the Italians against which he had fought during much of the War. He at once replied that the Italian troops were just as brave as the troops of any other country and that the failure was in their selection of officers. They had never succeeded in recruiting an effective officer corps. We can never expect an army to be any better than its officers. That is one of the absolute limiting factors in the efficiency of an armed Service.
There is no doubt that we have before us, in the Navy, an essential part of our Armed Forces, and that this is a subject of the utmost importance because on it depends how the naval officers of the future are to be chosen. Without pretending to any special knowledge of this subject, but with a deep interest in defence questions, one reads the Report before us, and the first feature that strikes one is the small dimensions of the problem. The numbers needed are very small. There is only a 14 per cent.


deficiency. Of course, that can be fatal. I do not suggest that it is not vitally important, but the numbers needed are small.
How is that deficiency to be made good? As far as one can see there are two alternatives. One is to try to make the present system work better. The Report largely concentrates, for the first part of it, on doing that. The whole Committee has been delighted to hear the remarks of the First Lord to the effect that a good many of the most important recommendations in that sphere, which sound to be excellent commonsense, have actually been adopted by the Admiralty already. I think that they will go far to remedy many of the difficulties. That is in effect what the Minority Report recommends, but the Majority Report goes on from that and recommends that the 13-year-old entry shall be reintroduced.
There are two ways of doing that. We could go back to the pre-war 13-year-old entry in its old form. The Report does not recommend that. The First Lord has not even suggested it and I do not think that it is effectively before the Committee, though judging from some of the communications to the Press it is in the minds of some people. But nobody really suggests that we can go back to that system. Therefore, the Majority Report makes a gallant attempt to revamp the 13-year-old entry in a very different form.
It proposes not an entry to the Navy at 13 but an entry to Dartmouth at 13. It abolishes the commitment to join the Navy which used to be a feature of the 13-year-old entry. Is that a practical proposition? If we abolish that commitment we make Dartmouth in effect one of the public schools, and the report actually recommends that the curriculum for Dartmouth, in the new form of the 13-year-old entry, should be adapted considerably to that of the public schools——

Mr. Spencer Summers: Would not that be a very good thing?

Mr. Strachey: There is something to be said for it, but then Dartmouth would become in effect either a free or, at any rate, an exceedingly cheap public school. The Committee recommend a somewhat elaborate system of what are in effect

means tests for the potential Dartmouth man. We quite understand it—it is very natural, and I do not resent it—that naval officers would like very much to have a free public school to provide, to a very considerable extent, for the children of naval officers.
It would be a very great asset, but is there really a case for it? I am looking at the position from the point of view of the other two Services—the Army and the Royal Air Force. Is there really a case for a public school largely borne on the Navy Estimates? We might make out a case for putting Eton on the Army Estimates; but it is not really a very easy case to sustain. Therefore, the Majority Report begins to get into serious difficulties when it commends this modified 13-plus entry. It has to abolish the commitment and to begin to make Dartmouth into one of the public schools largely maintained out of Navy Estimates.
Then it has to make a somewhat elaborate system of means tests, which I should have thought would be most difficult to administer; next there is a proposal of a quota, by which 60 per cent. of the entry at 13 is to be reserved for grammar school and grant-aided school boys. I should think that that would be extremely invidious and most difficult to work. Thus the gallant attempt of the Committee to make a new form of 13 entry breaks down under the difficulties. It seems to me that even the majority of the Committee half-thought that themselves. This is a most half-hearted recommendation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East has already read out their conclusions from page 90 of the Report. Nothing could be more hesitant than the way in which they are put forward. My hon. Friend read one passage. I read another where the majority of the Committee say:
If, in spite of this, our scheme, after consideration, should prove altogether unacceptable, it would be prudent to sacrifice this important source of recruits of good quality rather than to risk a dangerous shortfall in officer-recruitment as a whole through a continuing lack of public confidence.
So they are half-expecting that their attempt to make an acceptable 13-year-old entry cannot really hold water.
Why is it that there is a great deal of naval opinion of the older sort which


is so desperately keen to reintroduce the 13-year-old entry? It is not purely because of numbers—because it will help in meeting the deficiency. I thought that Mr. Barraclough in his Minority Report dealt with that conclusively. The recommendation is for only half the number at 13 years of age and half at 16 years of age. There is no reason to suppose that opening the gate at 13 will increase the total number. That is a pure supposition which it is difficult to support.
Surely, the reason is that there is a view that the best sort of naval officer can only be made if he is caught young—caught at the age of 13. To the layman the answer to that seems to be that for a good many years now half the regular naval officers have gone in at the age of 18 and that nobody is able to detect that they are inferior to those who went in at 13. Then there is the argument which strikes the layman, and anyone who has had any association with the other Services, that nobody dreams of saying that one cannot make an Army or a Royal Air Force officer unless he is caught at 13.
We are told that the Navy is a highly technical Service. So it is, but the other two Services are highly technical also. I do not know whether commanding a squadron of Centurion tanks in the Army or a squadron of Canberras in the Royal Air Force is less or more technical than the work of a naval officer. It would be very difficult to say. The argument that there is something quite peculiar about the naval service as against the other two is now very hard to sustain.
Again, with great deference, I call the attention of this naval audience to the experience of the Army in this matter. I do not say that the Army of today has solved the problem, but it has approached the question of the recruitment of its officers and the adaptation of its system to present-day requirements with flexibility and imagination. It is not the case that today Sandhurst is the exclusive reserve of the public school boy. I have not seen the recent figures, but, in general, I think that the War Office's use of the material from the grant-aided schools and the grammar schools—the overwhelming majority of the young men of our country who receive the requisite secondary education—and their selection for Army officers is being rather well done today,

and would be worthy of the attention of the naval authorities.
I remember watching the procedure of an Army selection board, in this case, the selection of National Service officers. I remember seeing one young man who was obviously magnificent Army officer material. He had been captain of the rugger XV at his school, commander of the school corps, captain of the cricket eleven—all the things which I was not, but wished I had been—and was obviously splendid material for an Army officer, and he was going to be turned into one. I looked through his papers which were before the selection officer, and I noticed that he came from a grant-aided school, and was, as a matter of fact, the son of a London retail tradesman. Therefore, we see the Army using this material from the grant-aided schools in an effective and imaginative way. I am not saying that the Admiralty do not do so, but they have not always given the impression that they are doing so; and that is the issue today.
What do we, on this side of the Committee, think the Admiralty ought to do about it? It is, surely, to make the present system work. The majority of the Committee did not think that 16 is the ideal age. They think that, when there are plenty of boys coming forward, as there probably will be, 18 may be the right age for entry. I do not pretend to know whether that is right or not, but, either the present system or some adaptation of it like that should be used.
I ask the First Lord to think very carefully indeed before he reintroduces the 13-year-old entry in any form, because, even with all the adaptations—and I have pointed out the obvious difficulties involved in them—the impression which would inevitably be given, if the 13-year-old entry is reintroduced, is that what the Royal Navy really wants are public school boys and only public school boys. The 13-year-old entry is very ill-suited to anyone else. It is very ill-suited to the whole of the State educational system of the country, and, therefore, inevitably a return to the 13-year-old entry must give that impression. It is bound, I should say, to do the very thing which the majority Report says is fatal—that is, to destroy the confidence of the vast State-aided secondary education system in the desire of the Admiralty to make use of their material.
This is only one part of this very big question on the selection of officers for the Armed Forces today, and I do not think that any of the Armed Forces have reached finality in the matter of selecting their officer material. It has been well said that the Armed Forces of the country cannot be more democratic than the country they mean to defend. But they must not be less democratic. They must reflect the social structure of the country, and the changes in that social structure. We are far from having yet become a classless society in this country today—I am under no illusions about that—but, nevertheless, the boundaries and divisions between classes have become less; the gaps have become and are still becoming narrower, and then changing in character. The Armed Forces, in every way, but above all in this vital and sensitive matter of the selection of officers, must keep in step with these social changes.
I think that the change which was introduced by my right hon. Friends and colleagues at the Admiralty did do that. It was not a final step, but the reintroduction of the 13-year-old entry would unquestionably be felt by the country to be regressive, and would, undoubtedly although unwittingly, do the naval service much harm and no good.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. Henry Brooke: In these debates it is customary for hon. Members who take part to declare a financial interest. I have no financial interest in this matter whatever, nor, I imagine, has any other hon. Member, but, in case suspicions should rise in the mind of anyone, may I say frankly that I do happen to hold the honorary position of President of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools, a position which I have hitherto found a pleasant sinecure. I hope the Committee will accept my statement that I have not consulted that body since the Report was published, nor have I an idea what their reasoned opinion about it may be.
I am venturing to take part in this debate as one who has never served in the Royal Navy, and has never been a schoolmaster, but who, at the age of about 12, would have loved to go into the Navy, and who is old-fashioned

enough—if it is old-fashioned—to hold the deep conviction that, if the Royal Navy fails to obtain the quality of officers which it needs, the security of our country will be imperilled.
The problem here is to attract and select the right 250 or 300 boys each year as officer material. The magnitude of this problem is tiny. Its difficulty and importance are immense. That is why this debate is welcomed on both sides of the Committee. Speaking for myself, I should be happy if all could be brought in at the age of 18, and I have no great love for entry at 16 or even at 13. If we place any confidence at all in our schools, whether independent or maintained, we should grant that the schools are as well equipped as anybody to sift and develop the qualities of leadership, by the time boys reach the age of 18. Seamanship is, obviously, not a subject for me, but we see around us hon. and gallant Members who did enter the Navy by the special entry, and who were able to make excellent use of it in serving the nation well.
The age of 18 is favoured very considerably by the naval witnesses who gave evidence before this Committee, and virtually unanimously by the educationalists. Indeed, Mr. Barraclough's Minority Report agrees on that point, and advocates continuance of the 16-year-old entry mainly because the age of 18 is not for a long time to come likely to produce enough candidates, and not because he thinks there is intrinsic value in entry at 16. So it is beyond dispute that educational opinion says that 18 is the best age of entry. At the same time, one must recognise that, looking at the special entry results, the age of 18 appears to operate more favourably towards independent schools than does the age of 16.
At the age of 18, under special entry, 65 per cent. of the acceptances were from independent schools, as against 52 per cent. at the age of 16. But, as the Report says, special entry has been producing barely 100 successful candidates a year for some time, and, therefore, everybody agrees that we cannot possible rely upon it and it alone to produce 300. It will be another eight or nine years before the number of 18-year-olds increases steeply, as a result of the high birthrate from 1945 onwards.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is leaving the Chamber. I was just about to refer to him. Everybody criticises the age of 16 as a suitable age for entry except, it seems to me, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, who, in his speech, was heavily attacking those who had said that the 16-year-old entry system was a failure.
The fact remains that if we are to abide by the evidence given before this Committee—and, surely, having set up the Committee and having agreed that it was a good thing to have it, we must pay some attention to its findings—we cannot set aside what the Committee itself says in paragraph 37 of the Report:
The overwhelming opinion of the educational bodies and the naval witnesses we have consulted is that 16 is not a good age for recruiting future naval officers.
That may not be exactly the same as saying that the 16-year-old system is a failure, but there definitely is severe condemnation of it as a suitable age for entry.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East argued that it was well worth persisting with, because time had not yet been given to show whether the view of the Government of which he was a member could be justified, that without the 16-year-old entry the Navy would lose a large number of boys who left their secondary schools at 16 plus. Clearly, that is an important question to be tested out, but if the Committee will look at paragraph 39 of the Report they will see that it says:
We doubt if boys who are suitable for the Navy form more than a small proportion of the total number leaving grammar schools at 16.
I could quote more extensively from paragraphs 38 and 39. There, I think, the fact is substantially established by the Committee that there is not a very big field at the age of 16 which is insufficiently cultivated at the present time.
I agree with the suggestions in the Report about the various changes and improvements that might be made in methods. But it seems to me to be going altogether too far to suggest that by those changes a vast new field of potential entrants could be reached. The hon. Gentleman further criticised what had been happening and sought to suggest

that many more grammar school boys could have been brought in had it not been for the adverse action of the Interviewing Board. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough) very effectively pointed out that it really is unfair for the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East to talk about a stream in 1948 and a trickle in 1953, when, in fact, the numbers concerned have been 679 in 1948 and 651 in the most recent year.
I hope that if the Parliamentary Secretary is winding-up this debate he will answer the question which the hon. Gentleman raised as to whether there has been a big dip in those figures in the interval. Seeing that we are still getting 651 applications in 1953 as against 679 five years ago, it is not fair to say that the grammar schools are turning away from the Navy. What may well be true is that individual grammar schools have lost interest because promising boys of theirs have at some time seemed to be unjustly turned down.
Frankly, I think that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East went too far in stating that the Committee which produced this Report heavily criticised the Admiralty interviewing board. What it did was to make a number of suggestions. I would draw the attention of hon. Members to the final sentence in paragraph 130, which the hon. Gentleman did not quote. It says:
There are bound to be errors in any interview procedure: a few of the boys who have been accepted have not justified their selection; and, so far as we can judge, if any suitable boys have been lost to the Navy as a result of the defects in the Admiralty Interview Board procedure their number has been small.
We regret that any should have been lost, but if we are to reach, and if we are to help the First Lord to reach, an objective decision in this matter, do not let us magnify that word "small" and suggest that grave injustice has been done in all sorts of directions.
The 16-year-old entry, as I have said, receives very little support from any quarter. The Majority Report recommends that 25 per cent. of the total annual entry should continue to come in at 16, say, 65 out of a total of 260 a year. The signatory of the Minority Report recommends 50 per cent. But the


logic of the Report is that ideally the percentage should not be 50 or 25, but that it should be nil.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said that the age of 13 was wrong and that it would be reversing the tide. That all depends on whether it is a good tide or a bad tide. I fully agree that 18 is a better age than 16 or 13. Quite clearly, however, we cannot have the ideal world at this moment, if, indeed, it is agreed that in an ideal world entry would be at 18 and at no other time. So we have got to look at practical alternatives.
I am sure that the future naval officer who does not enter at 18 will do better if he is educated continuously at one place from the age of 13 to the age of 18, than if he remains in one school up to the age of 16 and is then put through a two-year course at Dartmouth, from 16 to 18, as in the present system. That surely must be unsatisfactory on educational grounds and—though here I speak with diffidence—I should have thought that it had shortcomings from the naval point of view.

Mr. Callaghan: I think that the hon. Member is, like a great many others, looking at this matter purely from the point of view of the preparatory school and the public school. There are a great many people who are ready to look after those interests. I am interested in the secondary grammar schoolboys of whom 25,000, as is said, leave school at the age of 16. It is for them that I wish to make provision. It is for them that this examination was designed. In the very paragraph 39 which the hon. Member has mentioned it states:
… the total leaving school at 16 is itself so great that it is possible that there would be a greater flow of suitable candidates from this source if the suggestions we make … were adopted.

Mr. Brooke: I would beg the hon. Member to accept it from me that I am not speaking on behalf of the preparatory or the public schools, or anybody else. I am seeking to speak on behalf of the Navy. When the hon. Member quotes the figure of 25,000 I must remind him that I have already quoted a subsequent statement by the Committee casting doubt on the question whether boys suitable for

the Navy form more than a small proportion of that 25,000.

Commander Pursey: But they have-never seen them.

Mr. Brooke: I am not seeking to go-behind the Committee and insert personal judgments of my own.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East wishes to guard against boys of a certain type of education obtaining a sort of priority right of entry into the Navy. I would ask him to be quite sure that he steers clear of the alternative extreme, that of seeking some priority right of entry for a number of boys just because-they have been at a secondary grammar school, even if they would not be able to compete on equal terms at the age in question with boys who have been educated at some other school.
The hon. Member appears to be under the impression that the system here recommended by the majority of the Committee, for new entry at the age of 13, would be specially favourable and suited to the preparatory schools. Of course, that is not the case on the educational side. This Committee recommends a compulsory paper in science, with no paper in Latin. If the hon. Member studied the normal preparatory school organisation, he would realise that preparatory schools have no science masters, and there are none to spare for them, whereas the vast majority of their boys, they will have to continue to educate for schools where Latin is compulsory as an entrance examination subject.
I am not greatly enamoured of the 13-year-old entry, but I see one enormous, advantage in the new proposal over the old system, in that the examiners and the interviewing board will be able to exercise a much wider discretion in making their choice. I would put to those opposed to the suggestion that such wider discretion could be exercised in favour of many boys who have spent two years at a maintained grammar school. They could be given the benefit of the doubt when the board was accepting them, not as naval officers, but simply as new boys coming to Dartmouth. That benefit of doubt could not have been extended in the old days when the interviewing board had to perform the unenviable task of deciding whether boys of 13 should be


selected not simply for Dartmouth, but to become future naval officers.
I would add one fresh point which has not been touched upon in this debate, and is hardly mentioned in the Report. If this problem was examined by someone who knew nothing about its past history, or the previous debates both here and in the educational papers or elsewhere, I think they would ask whether there is a substantial connection between the value of boarding school education and the qualifications required for entry to the Navy. My guess is that the advantage which a number of boys from independent schools are able to show before the interviewing board does not derive from the fact that they have been to a fee-paying school, but from the fact that they have been to a boarding school. Whatever its faults may be, a boarding school education develops self-reliance in a boy, and I feel that it is that quality of self-reliance which the interviewing board is seeking.
I fully realise there cannot be complete agreement among us yet on this whole matter. But what we all want is that my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty shall make an absolutely unbiased decision in due course, after examining not only this Report but the point of view of everyone.
On one point at least I hope we can all be in agreement, that the Committee has done a splendid piece of work, first in sifting all the facts, and, secondly, in recommending the establishment of a standing liaison committee which, henceforward, will keep the Admiralty in touch always with educational development and feeling throughout the country. My hope is that through the continuing work of that Committee, if future adjustments have to be made in the system of officer entry, it will be possible to make them with less strong feelings and with greater educational unanimity than, unfortunately, has been the case in these last few years.

5.28 p.m.

Commander Harry Pursey: In accordance with the traditions of this House, I must declare an interest in this subject. I was commissioned from the lower deck, so there should be no doubt, from the start, where I stand regarding the suggestion for a new scheme of entry at 13. Like the Irishman, I am "agin it."
At present, the problem of the naval cadet entry, stripped of all the verbiage about the national interest and the good of the Navy, is two-fold: First, there is the failure of the Admiralty to attract sufficient entries—a failure which the Report shows should not have occurred. Secondly, and more controversial, there is the interest of the present reactionary Tory Government to put the clock back by halving the new and democratic 16-year-old entry and reintroducing the old class preserve 13-year "prep" school entry for a quarter of the entries.
The object is to take away half the chances for the poorer 16-year old boys from the national schools in order to give them to more fortunate boys who attend expensive "prep" schools simply because their parents can afford to pay high fees for their education. The parental income is to be the deciding factor with payment for certain things, such as board and lodging. Yet these favoured seraphins and cherubims already have all the chances of every other boy, if they can make the grade, namely, the 16-year entry, the 18-year entry and, if they miss the boat on those two occasions, entry from the lower deck, obtaining a commission in a free-for-all.
If this new entry is introduced the result will be to make the cadet entry a political issue and a shuttlecock of party politics, as it was made by the Tory Party in the Liberal Government before the First World War. There is no real reason for the present shortage of officer entries, as is shown in the Montagu Report. In fact, boys of 13 in 1948 and since, who may have been entries under the now abolished early entry scheme, are today five years older, and, therefore, should be additional 18-year entries from now onwards.
Moreover, as stated in the Report, the number of available boys is likely to increase. Another factor is that the number of cadet entries is likely to decrease. The number will not remain at the present high level, so both these factors help to solve the problem. Furthermore, as Mr. Barraclough, a member of the Committee, has pointed out in an admirable Minority Report which is worthy of serious consideration, more cadets should have been obtained from the 16-year entry, if the Admiralty had so desired, and there is no reason


for a further third entry at the "prep" school age.
Two major breaches were made in the "prep" school class preserve before the First World War. First, there were commissions from the lower deck and, secondly, there was the 18-year entry. The result is that for 40 years, in other words practically the whole of our lifetime, we have had late entry officers who have passed through all grades, commanded ships and risen to flag rank. Another important point to note is that the first 18-year entries, and also those who came in after the First World War, went straight from their various schools, direct to the sea-going training cruiser.
Those two facts completely demolish the argument that it is essential to "catch 'em young" and train the little darlings for four years in a monastic institution at Dartmouth, isolated like Trappist monks, instead of rubbing shoulders with their future contemporaries in the Army, the R.A.F. and other careers, in the nation's service. The Report claims that there is an advantage in enabling the 13-year-olds to mingle with the later entries. If that is so, why not make the establishment co-educational and send the Wrens there as well?
Nevertheless, in spite of these overwhelming factors, the Admiralty and the Government, whom I blame as much as the Admiralty, again wish to throw the whole question of cadet entry into the volcano of public controversy, the only result of which will be a further reduction in the number of all entries. The main recommendation of the proposed new scheme is this further entry at 13, mainly for "prep" schools again, but with a fictional quota of 60 per cent. for grant-aided schools.
I say "fictional" because, obviously, if the grant-aided school quota is not filled, the balance, if not all, will go to the "prep" schools. The entries suggested, three times a year, are 13 from grant-aided schools and nine from preparatory schools. These figures are so small as to add to the farce of the proposal especially since, as I have said, the numbers are likely to decrease with a reduction of entries.
The Report states, moreover, that the scales must be heavily weighted in favour of the preparatory schools. What greater

condemnation is required? Stripped of all the camouflage in the Report, which attempts to produce an old carthorse as a Derby winner, this proposal is merely a barefaced attempt to return to the old class preserve system of half a century ago. The result would be to revive the suggested notice of 1910 for recruiting offices, but this time for 16-year and 18-year-old entries.
Only second-rate boys required. First-class boys apply for the 13-year entry at 'prep' schools.
The proportion recommended for this new entry is one quarter of the total, which is then to be split into two parts, as stated previously. The 18-year entry is to remain at one-half. It is also to be the main entry, which is the right policy. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) support that. The 16-year entry, however, is to be reduced from one-half to one-quarter to provide for the "prep" school entries. This process is far too naive even for the Tory Party and the Admiralty, because the next step is far too obvious, particularly for those of us who remember the debates before the First World War, when the Tory Party argued for the retention of the "prep" school entry and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the barriers were broken down.
If the reduced 16-year-old entry still does not attract sufficient numbers—and the Admiralty, obviously, do not wish it to do so, judging from the First Lord's statement—the 16-year-old entry will eventually be abolished. The death-knell will be delayed for two steps instead of one today, simply to camouflage the intentions of the present Government and Admiralty.
The position then will be a 50–50 one for the 13-year "prep" school entries and the 18-year entries, but hon. Members should mark that it would be only for the time being. The next obvious step, if the Admiralty and the Tory Government have their way, is that the 13-year entry will again become the main one and the 18-year entry simply a supplementary one. The 18-year entry number for all branches has been as low as 15 in 1920, and I believe there were years when it was even lower.
The reactionary wheel will have turned full circle and the Navy will again be back where it was 40 years ago. Little


wonder that the Committee state, in their concluding paragraph:
… we hesitate to recommend our new scheme unreservedly.
In fact, it is doubtful whether any other committee on a career entry or education, or any other subject for that matter, has ever hedged their main recommendation with so many qualifications and "ifs" and "buts."
In spite of a certain amount of repetition in the debate I must make some further quotations to develop my theme. The Committee state: They said—[Interruption.] If any hon. Member opposite would like to butt in I shall be glad to give way. I can assure hon. Members that after listening to the nonsense that we have heard from hon. Members opposite I have no intention of allowing this debate to pass off like a pleasant Sunday afternoon, especially in view of the attitude and the record of the Tory Party in opposing democratisation in the Navy and the widening of cadet entry. Let us have no misunderstanding about that.
The Report says:
The crux of the entire problem is whether there can be created among the public generally a greater confidence that the Navy is determined to recruit its future officers from the nation at large.
Where should the officers be recruited from except from the nation at large? Why should there be a close preserve for one national State Service? This talk about taking people from restricted circles is nonsense. They have the same opportunities as anybody else; let them get on with it. My answer is a very emphatic, No.
The Committee, moreover, frankly admit that there is a preponderance of educational opinion against an early entry. Later, they state:
If … our scheme should prove altogether unacceptable, it would be prudent to sacrifice this important source … rather than to risk a dangerous shortfall in officer recruitment as a whole through a continuing lack of public confidence.
I can guarantee the Admiralty a dangerous shortfall in all entries if they adopt this proposed scheme; so do not let us have any mistake about that either.
Another of the many "ifs" in the Report is this:
If … the considered reaction of informed opinion is adverse, we believe it might do the Navy more harm than good to adopt a revised scheme of entry … in the teeth of public and educational opinion.

The Report goes on to give numerous arguments against the 13-year-old entry, some of which have been referred to today and others which I need not repeat in the limited time at our disposal.
Two questions arise however, which the Admiralty spokesman should answer. First, why should the Navy be the only National Service in this country or in any other country to hanker after a 13-years-old entry? Secondly, why should such an entry be claimed for executive officers—because that is how it will again work out—when this is the easiest branch to supplement from other sources when necessary? In any case, if the Admiralty wish to catch them, they can get them equally well at 18 as they can at 13.
I have no wish to belittle my own Service, in which I served for 30 years, but this question is so important that I must be quite frank with the Committee, the Navy and the country. There is no black magic in a naval officer's career, and certainly there is no black magic in an executive officer's career. We do not want every entry to become an admiral. There are many outlets from the Navy even one into politics, as we see from hon. Members opposite, and from others, who on these benches were largely in the Navy for short periods, whereas on the benches opposite they were career officers. I hope that those who speak after me will declare their interest and state whether they were "prep" school or public school entries.
Large numbers of Royal Naval Reserve officers have been entered from the Merchant Service, and large numbers even from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the Navy's "Territorials"—I say this with no disrespect—and numbers have been commissioned from the lower decks. A number commanded ships, even submarines, and piloted aircraft in the last war. In fact, at the Armistice I believe it is true to say that there was, a far larger number of late entries into the Navy than early entries. What better criterion than the test of six years of war? Surely the Admiralty cannot expect those of us who know the facts to treat this 13-year entry suggestion seriously, even though they may be serious about introducing it. If it were not so ludicrous it might be farcical.
The shortage of officers is due not to lack of entry schemes but to lack of


Admiralty effort successfully to work existing schemes. The trouble about this inquiry, however, is that it was made by the wrong type of committee, and a packed committee at that, with the wrong object in view—not the question of cadet entry but what to do with Dartmouth College. Anybody who knows the previous arguments about it can read that theme going right through the Report.
The Committee consisted of five educational representatives and five naval officers and Admiralty civil servants combined.

Mr. J. P. L. Thomas: Two naval officers.

Commander Pursey: If the First Lord and others will only contain themselves, I guarantee that I shall deal only with the facts of the Report. If I go wrong in my facts I am quite prepared to give way and be corrected, but please wait and let the dog see the rabbit.
The Committee consisted of five educational representatives and five naval officers and Admiralty civil servants combined, with the Judge Advocate of the Fleet as Chairman, to make a total of 11. It was too big in the first place and the dice were loaded from the start in favour of the Admiralty view, which has been canvassed for over five years. In 1948, however, the Admiralty argument was that if the 13-year entry was to be abolished, they wanted no truck with a democratic 16-year entry and that there should be only the 18-year entry to ensure getting the majority from the "posh" schools.
The Navy decided last year to investigate this cadet entry and training system, in particular in Dartmouth college. But no organisation anywhere else in the world, except the Admiralty, could have had the bright idea of placing on the Committee the three officials mainly responsible for the subjects under investigation. These were the Director of Naval Training, an Admiral; the Director of the Naval Educational Service, an Instructor Rear Admiral; and, most remarkable of all, the Headmaster of Dartmouth College—the very man whose job was the crux of the inquiry.
The only equivalent that I can think of is a Ministry of Food inquiry today into whether ewe mutton is ewe mutton or not, with five representatives from the

Master Butchers' Association, who would argue yes, and five from the Ministry of Food, who would argue no, with a lawyer who could equally well argue the case either way according to his brief, and so select one with a Ministry of Food instead of an Admiralty connection—because he is the Deputy-Judge Advocate of the Fleet—give him the official brief and thus ensure a majority argument of six to five before the whistle blew.
These three officials and the two Admiralty officials should never have been members of the Committee, investigating their own Departments and subjects. They should have been called as chief witnesses by an independent committee, and subjected to the most serious and rigorous cross-examination. The Committee should have been of a type similar to that of 1930, which had only five members, with a Member of Parliament as an independent chairman, with two Admirals and two educational representatives, one from the Board of Education and the other a headmaster. We might then have had a sensible, progressive Report.
Instead of that, we have such nonsense as the suggestion that Dartmouth College should be a public school, to provide a four years' course for a few "prep" school seraphins and cherubims, which suggestion was supported by hon. Members opposite. The Admiralty tried to start this false running hare 20 years ago. Why should the State provide special facilities for a secondary education and a few naval officers for one Service alone? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) said, if it is essential for the Navy, why not for the Army, the Royal Air Force, and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all?
Let us have no more nonsense about cadet entry, after the arguments which have gone on, to my knowledge, for over 50 years. Naval cadets, like every other entry into the several State Services, should obtain their secondary education in the schools of the country, rubbing shoulders with their future contemporaries in high posts, wherever they may be. There should be a common entry at 18, with special branches later. Dartmouth should be the university of the Navy for the majority of entries and branches. There is no reason why the Navy should provide a public school.


They should take public school and other entries at the age of 18 and use Dartmouth College as a university. All this "hoo-hah" from the other side about the Navy providing a public school is absolute nonsense and bunkum.
As far as I can see, not a word is said in the Report about the increasing standard of national education. There is no suggestion that we should make further use of it. The question of commissions from the lower deck were not dealt with by the Committee, and all I shall say about it is that the Admiralty have larger numbers under Vote A on the active list than at any other time in their history, and also their highest standard of lower deck entries. Consequently, there should be no shortage of candidates but, if there is, it should be made good by commissions from the ranks, in the executive, engineering and supply and secretariat branches, and also from the Royal Marines.
The Navy should be thrown open more widely to its own ranks than it is today. Stripped of all nonsense, that is the obvious solution in a nutshell to the problem of naval entry. Moreover, it is the only one which will obtain full support from education authorities and also attract entries.
In the past, the Admiralty have made many attempts to sell the dummy to the education authorities and to obtain the cream of the entries from the other Services. The direct entry into the advanced class in 1928 was one example, when the Admiralty's wishful thinking tried to entice higher standard boys into the Service as ratings instead of officers. Needless to say, the scheme failed miserably, as the proposed new one is likely to do.
So far, I have not engaged in controversy in the Press and elsewhere on the subject of the cadet entry. Had I done so—and I have some knowledge of national campaigns against the Admiralty—it may have had an adverse effect upon all naval entries, and candidates may have gone to other Services and other careers. But I warn the contestants that if I start to unfold the record of the Tory Party, and the statements of the Nelsonic admirals, they will be in a jam.
There is a large volume of written evidence in support of the abolition of the 13-year-old entry and in favour of the entry at 18 years. There is no question

but that an overwhelming number of people will oppose this 13-year entry and support the 18-year one. The Tory Party have no mandate or majority in the House of Commons to justify such a half-baked scheme as this. I warn the Admiralty and, in particular, the Government—because they are responsible—that if this 13-year-old entry scheme is forced through in the teeth of opposition in this House and the country I shall oppose it, lock, stock and ruddy barrel—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]—wait for it, because there is something else coming—in whatever field is open to me. What a grand subject this will make for me when the Government introduce sponsored television.
I hope my hon. Friends on this side will use every legitimate means in their power to strangle the scheme at birth if there is any question of it going into conception. We can create such a furore throughout the country that, as foreshadowed in the Report, it will be
… bound to lead to a further loss of faith in the Admiralty's desire to throw wide the net of officer recruitment, with a consequent disastrous effect on the numbers who would come forward from the grammar schools at 16 and 18——

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence (Mr. Nigel Birch): Unquote.

Commander Pursey: These is no reason to give the "unquote." What is required is "quotes."
My final word to the Government and the Admiralty is this: Do not say "We have not been warned." You have, and you will get it, chums.

5.49 p.m.

Commander J. W. Maitland: I am very grateful for the opportunity of speaking in this debate, because I am a very undistinguished end-product of the subject we are discussing today. I shall do my best to speak about it with that unconscious bias which we heard from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South East (Mr. Callaghan), who introduced the subject in an extremely fair and pleasant way. It is a very difficult problem.
I must admit that when the late Government introduced their 16-year-old entry my immediate reaction was that I could not quite understand the need for a change when conditions in the past had


been at least fairly satisfactory. I have not heard very much criticism of naval officers as such. Since I left the Navy, I have had the opportunity to meet a great many other people and, except perhaps in politics—I think the hon. and gallant Member for Hull, East (Commander Pursey) was a little unkind about that—I think naval officers can hold their own in any part of the community. They are about as fine a product as we find anywhere, with, of course, the exception of those who have become politicians.
It seemed curious, then, that when there was so much wrong in the world which could have been made better, the Government took something which was working pretty well and "mucked it about." I think they must take some responsibility for the fact that entry into the Navy has fallen off. There has been a great doubt in the minds of parents about what is going to happen. The matter became a political issue, and that is a great pity. Many parents today are uncertain about when to put their boys forward for the Navy. That has been one of the causes of the fall in the number of entries.
I want to take up one or two small points in the speech of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East. The first concerns the successes of the public schools and the "prep" schools in the examinations. He suggested that it was unconscious bias and that we should leave it at that. I think there is another reason. If he will look at his own policy pamphlet "Challenge to Britain," he will see that the first objective in the educational field is, very rightly, the improvement of the quality of education by reducing the size of classes. That happens at a "prep" school and it also happens at a public school; and that is why many of his hon. Friends who can afford it send their boys to "prep" schools and public schools. Classes are smaller and because they are smaller, the education tends to be better. It is only fair to say that one of the reasons boys from that type of school did so well may well have been because their classes were smaller.
Another reason has already been mentioned—the effect of boarding schools. Boarding schools tend to make boys more

self-reliant and more able to deal with emergencies, and I think it gives them what may be regarded as an unfair advantage in such an interview.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East when he says the net should be opened as wide as possible. There is only one criterion in this matter. It is that we should get the best we can as officers in the Navy. I am sure the hon. Member will acquit me of any other wish than that. If at the present time the best boys come from the public schools, then they should be given their opportunity. For myself, I consider that it would be the right thing to restore lock, stock and barrel the 13½ year-old entry and to give those boys an unfair advantage; but if it is to become a political pawn, then for heaven's sake do not let us do it, because it is far more important that the future recruitment of officers for the Navy should be outside any conceivable party political antagonism.
I think the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East quibbled a little when he dealt with the vital paragraph 37, which reads:
The overwhelming opinion of the educational bodies and the naval witnesses we have consulted is that 16 is not a good age for recruiting future naval officers.

Dr. Horace King: As this has been quoted twice, and as the hon. and gallant Member, like the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke), is praying it in aid of the Report, is it not also a fact that in paragraph 315 the Report says that the majority of the educational bodies in the country are unanimously against 13-plus? If they think 16-plus is bad, they believe that 13-plus is worse.

Commander Maitland: I do not think the latter argument applies, but at the moment I am not arguing for the 13-year old. I had more or less finished that argument when I said I thought it was the right thing only as long as it was not allowed to become a political issue. Perhaps I may add this for clarification: it has been assumed that 13 is an impossible age, but no one knows better than the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. King) that 13 is the chosen age for a further exchange between modern schools and grammar schools, where that is possible. We all know that often we cannot make the exchange because of shortages and the various other difficulties which we face in education today, but,


nevertheless, 13 is another re-thinking point in a child's life, and it was intended to be so in the Education Act. There is nothing frightfully illogical about adopting the age of 13. I do not want to go too far into this matter, because although I believe it is a good thing, and believe it would be good for the Navy to do it, I still think it would be wrong to make it a political pawn.
Before I was interrupted, I was referring to the widening of the net, which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East had mentioned. I agree with what the hon. Member said, but I should add this: a little too much has been made by educationists, and perhaps by himself in his speech, about the Navy as a career. I do not think we shall ever sell the Navy as a career comparable with other industrial careers or professions. In the past those are not the sort of boys who have gone into the Navy.
In those sheltered days when people went to Dartmouth it was the rich boys and, equally, the poor boys who entered the Navy. When I was at Dartmouth it was possible to get there without having to pay anything at all, and it was parsons' sons and retired naval officers' sons who formed a large proportion of the boys there; and many boys who have now risen to the highest ranks entered Dartmouth like that. They could have made far more money if they had entered other professions, because they had the brains, but they entered the Navy because they wanted the Navy. They saw something in it; they saw a first-class opportunity of serving their country. It is a service, not a career. In fact, we all refer to it as "the Service."
I think the hon. Gentleman and the Government should put that across to the boys. They will then get a response. In these days careers must be borne in mind; these boys must be able to look forward to a living salary throughout their lives and to a good pension—that is very important—but nevertheless the appeal of a vocation is still very strong. We have only to look at the nursing profession for an example. All over the country highly educated girls, who could earn far more elsewhere and get far more leisure, enter nursing and stick to the job because they like it and have a vocation for it. Those boys like the Navy and want the Navy; and those

are the boys we want to get. It is not just a platitude to say that we are a great naval country. We have a tradition in the Navy. We believe in it. It is a good life. The boys will come forward, but we should not try to sell it in terms of £ s. d.
I will go a stage further and give my ideas on the subject. First of all, as I have indicated, I do not think very much of the compromise. Compromises are not much good anyway, and this one is a particularly feeble one. It is introduced by these words:
… we hesitate to recommend our new scheme unreservedly …
That is not a very good selling point for any scheme. The Committee should have done better than that. Do not let us think about it any more, because I do not think it will work, and I do not think the Navy or anyone else wants it. After all, the Navy has a vested interest in this—and we should not forget that. Those of us who have been in the Service must never think we can represent the Navy. Let the Navy represent themselves, if they can. The greatest mistake I have heard in debates on naval subjects in the House has been made by elderly naval officers talking about the Navy of their youth—which is one thing no naval officer ought to do. I probably do it myself, but perhaps I may be allowed one little slip.
Let me give my personal view. I give it with reserve because I am not in the Navy now and things may be different, but I think there is something in it. I think we ought to regard cadet entry into the Navy as a whole. Time spent at Dartmouth has been in the past only one part of that process. It used to work out like this. One spent four years at Dartmouth, six months in a training cruiser, two and a half years as a midshipman at sea, and 18 months at Greenwich, and then one was an officer. One could not say that one part in that course was more important than another. However, speaking from my own experience, I think that by far the most important part in my case was my time at sea as a midshipman, because then one had a chance of responsibility, and, anyway in the old days, one had a pretty tough time, and one learned far more then than at Dartmouth or in a training cruiser.
A midshipman's training was largely dependent on big ships. We are not a big ship Navy any longer. Time was when midshipman training was almost exclusively in cruisers and battleships. Now we cannot have that. I do not believe we can possibly train midshipmen as well in aircraft carriers as in cruisers because the training in such ships, and in small ships, is far too specialised. Therefore, we are reaching a time in our naval history when the whole question of the development of training is under review.
In my opinion, we cannot take any of these methods of entry into the Navy and say, "We will alter that one and consider this one," entirely irrespective of all the rest. We must consider them all as a whole. So I would ask the First Lord to consider this point. Have we not now reached the moment in the Navy's history when it may be necessary to make a big change and, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hull, East said, make 18 the real entry age?
I think the Report emphasises too much the difficulties. I want to see the standards of naval officers kept up at all costs. I would rather we were short of naval officers than reduce the standard. I do not mind where a chap comes from so long as he is up to the highest standards, but I think that now the moment has come when we ought to consider the whole thing again, and consider the 18-year-old. The age of 18 is a decisive one now. Nowadays a boy of 18 has to go into the Forces, one way or another. It is a crucial moment in his life. I believe we ought now to take that age, and introduce an entirely different form of training. We need ships at sea. It may be a good way of keeping them at sea by giving these boys a good long period of training in them, a training of a sort half-way betwixt that of a training cruiser and the two-and-a-half-year course of a midshipman's training at sea.
I think that that would attract boys far more than the present rather doubtful and rather-difficult-to-explain methods of entry into the Royal Navy. I think it would attract parents, too. Those are my ideas. I expect they are out of date, though I hope not. I am quite prepared to the in the last ditch for the Navy, but I do not want to the in die last ditch for something the Navy does not want.

6.14 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: I speak not as a naval man but as one interested in boys whether they go into the Navy or anywhere else. Anyone who studies the Report will agree that it is a careful and painstaking Report. Anyone who knows the chairman of the Montagu Committee would have expected that Committee to produce a fair and objective and just Report, and I believe that those expectations have come true. That does not mean we can accept all the recommendations or all the findings of the Committee.
If some of us do not accept all the findings, nevertheless we by no means identify the Committee with the worst reactionary and most prejudiced views of those who really think that there was nothing wrong in recruiting the officers of the Royal Navy from one social class, that the Labour Government did something shocking when they interfered with Dartmouth, and that the sooner we make Britain safe again for the public school boy and the prep, school boy the better.
I think that this Report, in spite of what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hull, East (Commander Pursey) said, is far from expressing such a diehard and reactionary point of view. The First Lord himself, whenever we have referred to this subject here, has constantly said that he, like the Members of the Opposition, wants to see the best boys, no matter to what social class they belong, recruited into cadetships for the Navy. We shall judge him, and we shall judge the professions he has made, by his reactions and by the policy he produces in response to the Montagu Committee's Report.
First, let me underline how far the Report confirms what some of us have been saying for some time. At present, and since 1948, there are two ways of getting into Dartmouth. One is by examination at the age of 16 for roughly a two-year course; the other is by examination between 17 and 18 for a shorter course. Boys who win places are educated and maintained at the public expense. Dartmouth is a State school. Parents pay nothing for tuition or boarding, but may be asked to pay up to £90—according to their income—towards the cost of uniform and travelling.
Let me emphasise again that Dartmouth is a State school. It is a public public school, costing about £250,000 each year of the taxpayers' money. Before the war Dartmouth was not that kind of school. Before the war it was an exclusive public school, with parents paying fees which, as in most public schools, met part of the cost; fees which were, however, enough to exclude all but the sons of the middle-class and upper-class people of this country. A boy started there at the age of 13-plus, after leaving "prep" school, and Dartmouth was, like Eton and Harrow and Winchester, a class school which was part of the stratification of society which some wish to perpetuate but which the Opposition wish to transform.
When the new scheme of entry at the age of 16-plus started in 1948, the State grammar schools eagerly rushed forward to take advantage of this new democratic method of entry into the Royal Navy. The only disagreement with the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) that I would express would be on a minor detail—his reference to the decline in the number of grammar school boys who are entering. The numbers have remained remarkably firm, in spite of what, for us, is the real discouragement in the results of the last three or four years.
Candidates sit for a written examination. Since 1948, of 2,500 grammar school boys, 585 have passed the written examination, about 25 per cent. Of 1,100 public school boys 352 passed the written examination, about 30 per cent. I would say this result reflects great credit on the grammar school boys of the country. After all, the grammar school boys are educated, as compared with public school boys, under comparatively disadvantageous conditions, with a staffing ratio at most half of that which is enjoyed by the public schools.
So far as the written examination is concerned, this experiment in democracy—this move towards democratising Dartmouth—has been remarkably successful. Now comes the grave and disturbing feature. The written examination is followed by an interview. Of 585 successful grammar school boys only 165 got through the interview, under 30 per cent.—whereas of the 352 public school boys, 240 were accepted, or nearly 70 per cent.
What is much more serious is that the favoured position of the public school boys, so far as the interview is concerned, has improved year by year as the examination has gone on. Concerning the examination and the interview, I quoted in the House in March, 1950, that seven out of 50 grammar school boys who passed the written examination were accepted, but 22 out of 44 public school boys were accepted. In the first three examinations at the beginning of this system, 40 grammar school boys were accepted into Dartmouth compared with 27 public school boys, and in the last three examinations 30 grammar school boys as compared with 62 public school boys.
These are the facts. I suggest that it is no wonder, with these figures before us, that grammar school masters, and the parents of able, lower-class children, and these young ambitious lads themselves, imbued with the spirit of vocation and service to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has just referred—and the boys of England still have the passion for and love of the Navy and the sea in them—feel some disquiet about these interviews. In the days when I was a headmaster, my job was to discourage 99 per cent. of Southampton boys who wanted to become captains of merchant ships or battleships. It is, therefore, no wonder, with these figures before them, that the public, the House of Commons itself, and the Montagu Committee are troubled about the accuracy of the interview as a means of choosing cadets.
I have always been fair—if not generous—to the interviewing board, dominated as it is by the Navy—mathematically dominated by the Navy—and haying on it a preponderance of old public school boys. I am willing to acquit the interviewing board of any conscious class bias or of favouring officers' sons, or boys belonging to what are still quaintly called in this class structure of ours "good families."
I admit that mere success in a written examination should not automtically get a boy into the Royal Navy, and that when a brilliant grammar school boy is rejected by the interviewing board it does not automatically mean that he is rejected because he has come from a grammar school. But the Montagu Committee's Report itself was unanimous in expressing its appreciation of the difficulty under


which the day-school boy labours compared with the public school boy at these interviews. It is true that the Report holds an opinion, which I do not share, that public school boys will always provide a high proportion of the Navy's officers. That may be because even the Committee's structure contained a high percentage of ex-public school boys. But the Report also says:
We consider it possible that some grammar school boys have been excluded who might well have been included.
It also states that a former member of an Admiralty interviewing board, giving evidence, admitted the disadvantages, and the sense of inferiority under which grammar school boys laboured as compared with public school boys at the interview.
As one who went from a village and from an old secondary school to my own interview for a university scholarship, I can say from my own experience that a sense of inferiority on such occasions certainly exists in the minds of grammar school boys. I am not as sure, therefore, as the Montagu Committee is that the Press has distorted either the error and the injustice or the profound importance of putting the whole matter right and avoiding any such errors in the future.
This is not the occasion to debate the complete reform of our class system of education—a reform which has hardly yet started. But so far as Dartmouth is concerned, and inside the present set-up, we have somehow to secure a fairer chance for the boys of ability whose accent is wrong, or whose fathers are working men, or whose bearing lacks the confidence given by a secure home and a public school training. The primary school is not as good as the "prep" school by almost any criterion, and the boy who has a grammar school education often labours under many disadvantages compared with the public school boy.
Somehow, we have in selecting cadets to learn to probe beneath the surface—to spot character and ability and initiative even when obscured by the mask of social inferiority. So I welcome all the reforms suggested in the first part of the Committee's Report so far as the conduct of examination and interview or the 16-plus entry goes, and I was glad to

know that the First Lord has already stepped forward and accepted some of them—the integration of the Dartmouth examination with the certificate of education, the acceptance of the certificate of education as a substitute, where necessary, for the Dartmouth written examination—reforms which integrate Dartmouth into the pattern of the national educational system—and the cutting down of the preponderance of the Navy on the selection board, because the Report at least cuts one member of the Navy off the selection board.

Mr. J. P. L. Thomas: We have not accepted that yet.

Dr. King: I am sorry if I appeared to suggest that the First Lord has accepted all the reforms in the Report. I also welcome the equating of the written examination and the interviewing marks—I am not so sure about the abolition of numerical marks—and the greater weight to be given to the headmaster's reports on the candidates concerned. After all, the headmaster of a school who has had a boy under his wind for a number of years knows him much more intimately than the most skilful examiners in the world relying on a set of questions and the chance reactions to what they believe to be scientifically designed oral questions in an interview of two or three hours, and more intimately than even the testing officer who spends 24 hours with the boy and of whose excellent work everyone speaks highly.
The difficulty about taking the candidate's headmaster as the final judge is that of weighting his opinion against that of another headmaster of another boy. But I would go further than the Report in this matter. I see no reason why the interviewing panel should not consist equally of educationalists and of the Navy and if one were alarmed from either point of view—if the educationists did not trust the Navy or the Navy trust the educationalists—there might be some kind of veto if necessary, in the hands of each group.
I think that the Minority Report of Mr. Barraclough, an eminent educationist, was right when it advocated a standing committee of educationalists to advise the Admiralty on this important matter of selection and modern education. I think


that Mr. Barraclough was also right when he said that it was fantastically unfair—"fantastically" is my word—to condemn this scheme, which has hardly yet begun, before the first little experimental group of cadets has really emerged, and that we ought to allow the 16-plus entry to run for five or 10 years to give it a chance of justifying itself.
I also agree that the Admiralty, if it is sincere in its desire to get the best boys, must come down from its ivory castle and take steps to restore public confidence in the method of selection, which it has lost, must establish liaison between the Navy and the State system of education and must get it into its head that society is changing and that every decent person in the country believes in the 1944 Education Act and desires the equality of opportunity there enshrined to become a fact.
I now come to the most contentious part of the Report, that dealing with the proposed 13-plus entry. Preparatory and public school masters—or at least their associations—have a vested interest in the old method of recruitment for Dartmouth, which was abolished in 1948. Take away from the preparatory schools their powers of providing a sure way into the professions and we have taken away almost the sole reason for their existence.
One of the preparatory or public school year books listed last year boys who had passed the examination to Dartmouth. But it did not list all of them; it selected from the Dartmouth entry only the boys educated by preparatory schools. We talk of sponsored television. The preparatory schools almost give sponsored education. A standard work on the English preparatory schools in 1928 contained the statement that the preparatory school was the only way into Dartmouth. We have abolished that, and we believe that the preparatory schools are wrong in wanting to bring it back again.
The public and preparatory school associations want to return to the old régime, reintroduce the 13-plus entry, reinstate fee paying and return to where we were before the Labour Government transformed Dartmouth. I wish their evidence had been published, and I wish that the whole of the evidence given before the Committee had been published, so that we might know the reasons

on which they base the opinions that they gave to the Committee.
Many officers of the Royal Navy want to return to the old system. I can understand that, and I say that sympathetically. They would not be human if they were not loyal to the school that they loved so much and to the system which produced themselves. Moreover, the Navy wants to "get them young." I believe that it almost required legislation to stop the Navy taking boys at the age of 11 100 years ago. Sixteen is thought to be too old by the Navy, but West Point is content to take cadets at 17 or 18. Both these groups see education in a preparatory school and then an examination and transfer to Dartmouth as the natural order of things. They did not like the 1948 change. In his Minority Report, Mr. Barraclough, with considered understatement, tells how:
… the new scheme was not received with enthusiasm, to say the least, in the Service.
By "Service" Mr. Barraclough means the officers of the Navy. Admiral Fisher, who was a little less delicate in his utterances in similar circumstances when staking a claim for parity of esteem between engineer officers and other officers in the Navy, talked about naval Rip van Winkles.
State educationists, on the other hand, as distinct from the Navy and the vested interests of the preparatory and public schools, were almost unanimously against a return to the 13-plus entry. The State educationists include the Association of Education Committees, the County Councils Association, the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Incorporated Association of Head Masters, the London County Council and the National Union of Teachers. These bodies have no interest but an educational one. Their political complexion is not red. The L.C.C. apart, most of them would be predominantly Conservative bodies.
Their objections to the return to the 13-plus system are very simple, and I shall attempt to give them briefly. First, they say—most of my hon. Friends would agree—that 13 is far too soon to fix a boy's career and to select a potential officer. In view of the difficulties which the Report and all who have spoken today agree exist in the selecting of boys even at 16-plus, the difficulty of choosing


at 13-plus would appear to be a truth as self-evident as the great truths of the American Magna Carta.
Secondly, the break at the age of 13 fits only the preparatory-public school apparatus and cuts right across the State's division into primary and secondary education. Preparatory school boys want handicapping instead of being given a few yard's start. Moreover, many of the difficulties of the 16-plus selection and entry will disappear as we improve the methods of selection as a result of the reforms suggested in the Report. Above all, children want education as well as naval education. It is wrong to segregate a vocational group at the age of 13. I hope that hon. Members will not misunderstand me. I concede that education at Dartmouth, even in the old days, was by no means merely naval instruction, but the group of boys was a specialised group withdrawn from the general pattern of childhood far too soon. The educational witnesses outside the preparatory-public school group were also unanimously of the opinion that 17 or 18 is the ideal age at which to select cadets and regarded the 13-plus proposal as a movement away from that idea.
The Montagu Committee has attempted a compromise on 13-plus, and like all compromises, it is attacked from both camps, from diehards on the one hand and democrats on the other. It proposes to go back to 13-plus for half the entrants. If this proposal is carried out, there will be side by side two schools at Dartmouth, a junior school and a senior school, and the senior school will be recruited half from the junior school and half from outside at 16-plus. While this is not impossible, it will not make one school; it will make two schools. It will not be one organism; it will be two organisms. Ultimately it may lead to the elimination of the 16-plus entry.
The Report also proposes to reintroduce fee paying, not for tuition but for board and lodging, subject to a means test. I believe this to be a retrogressive proposal. If a boy is fit to be educated as an officer, the country ought to educate him. If he is not, the country should not. Fee paying fogs the issue and starts us on the way back from Dartmouth as it is to Sandhurst as it was and Eton as it still is.
The Montagu Committee admits that the old naked class selection must never come back. It admits that there is inequality of opportunity between the preparatory school child and the State school child, so much so that it attempts to meet the difficulty by earmarking 60 per cent. of the places for State school boys. Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I find this an attractive suggestion. On the other hand, I find the figure chosen a fascinating one. The authors of the Report assume that 40 per cent. of our future admirals are, and ought to be, found in the upper income groups.
This is a welcome advance on the reactionaries who imagine that 100 per cent. of our admirals will always be found in the upper income groups. So the Report is an honest attempt to meet the democrat's objection, the political objection, to a return to the old system, and, as such, deserves careful consideration. But if such earmarking is good, why not apply it to the 16-plus entry and to the special entry at 17, as I once suggested to the House? In both of these entries I interpret the figures as revealing the influence of privilege and I would ask, why not use this safeguard there?
But I believe that although the 13-plus proposal, with this safeguard, loses much of its reactionary sting, it still ought to be scrapped. My objections are educational rather than political. I share the views of the educationalists which I have just given to the Committee and which Mr. Barraclough has given in the Minority Report. The Majority Report thinks that it will be possible to select bright-eyed, alert lads at 13 and make officers of them. I think that is a gross oversimplification of a very complex problem.

Brigadier Ralph Rayner: Surely over a long term of years that is what they did most successfully. This Report admits it rather shamefacedly, and suggests that the results achieved at Dartmouth were really very good.

Commander Pursey: The hon. and gallant Gentleman seems to have been asleep for 40 years, and has only now come to.

Dr. King: No one on this side of the Committee would fail to pay tribute to the naval officers up to the present moment. Where we on this side differ from the hon. and gallant Gentleman is


that we believe that the type of officer can be still further improved if we recruit from the whole of British boyhood instead of from one section.

Brigadier Rayner: No one is arguing that.

Dr. King: Ultimately I believe we will select them later than 16. I hope that the Admiralty and the headmaster will make no bones about rejecting any young successful candidate who thinks that because he has got into Dartmouth he is safe for life and that he can rest on his laurels, for Dartmouth and the Navy will look after him, instead of realising that this is only the bottom rung and that the Navy wants young men who will give and not merely take.
But it will be much more difficult to reject the 13-year-old entrant if he is found to be unsuitable. I know it is proposed to weed them out at 16. "Failed at Dartmouth" is going to be a stigma, often wrongfully imposed, merely because we selected the wrong boy at the age of 13. Boys are unpredictable, and I would remind the Committee that neither the Prime Minister nor Julius Caesar would have been selected for Dartmouth at 13-plus. Both were late developers.
Again, it will be a waste of public money to give a Dartmouth type of education to candidates who turn out to be unsuitable. Moreover, once a boy is in by this special way at 13-plus, he is going to have a much better opportunity of getting on in the senior school than the senior group of entrants who come in at 16 years of age. The senior school itself is going to be split into two strongly marked groups.
We speak different languages in the House and in the country in more ways than one. We all talk about equality of opportunity. I admire the Navy. I was very proud when I had the opportunity of being a spectator at the glorious Spit-head Naval Review. I was impressed as much as anything else by the officers and men who stood so long and so precariously on the top of their submarines during the afternoon of that Review. I understand that inside submarines officers and men are just men together. I should like to think that every man who stood so long in a position which made a landsman shudder to look at could be certain that his son has the same chance as any other sailor's son of becoming a

young cadet at Dartmouth if he has the ability and the character. I should like to think that the miner's son and the farm worker's son has equal opportunity with the son of the steel owner or the son of the squire. In so far as this Report moves towards that goal, I welcome it. I think it does so in the proposed reforms for the 16-plus entry.
But its main proposal, the reintroduction of the 13-plus entry, will, if carried out, widen a breach which we are seeking to narrow. The Montagu Committee suggests scrapping the proposal if it antagonises the country and creates those party divisions to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Horncastle referred. I hope the First Lord will scrap it. The Navy is short of young officers. We have the whole of British youth to choose from. I believe that if the net is cast wide enough we shall find that the youth of this generation will not let the Navy down.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Summers: There is not very much time so I do not propose to cover a great deal of the ground to which reference has already been made as to the various ages at which it is desirable that there should be entry into the Royal Navy.
The comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooks), express almost without qualification my views on that particular aspect of the subject. What I want to bring out and what has not been mentioned yet is that the evidence in this Report appears to me to bring out, quite conclusively, that the requirements of the Navy seem to be found more satisfactorily from among those who have had a boarding school education—[An HON. MEMBER: "Nonsense"]—with the opportunities which it gives for the development of character compared with the other types of education.
An hon. Member opposite says "Nonsense," but what I am saying is shown by the evidence in this Report, and if he turns to page 8—and I will not go into details now—he will see quite conclusively that the view of the interviewing board up to now is to that effect. I can well understand the reason why, hitherto, the State-aided schools have not got as big a proportion of the entries as it was hoped the 1948 scheme would make possible.

Mr. Frederick Peart: rose——

Mr. Summers: I am not going to give way. I have waited from the start of this debate in the hope of getting in, and I do not propose to be delayed in my remarks in view of the short time left.

Mr. Peart: They talk about leadership, too.

Mr. Summers: I am not giving way.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite say that it is a pity that the State schools are not used more effectively for the bringing into the Navy of those who will make good officers, and steps are suggested in this Report to weight the method of selection in favour of these boys and make sure that a greater proportion of them enter the Navy. What I want to bring out is the need for improving the chances of boys from the State-aided school being selected for the Navy by improving the facilities for education in those schools. Now that Dartmouth is to be a place where selection for the Navy will not arise until the end of the stay at the College, it would improve the chances of those boys proposing to go into the Navy if my suggestion is followed.
I hope I may be permitted to mention a personal association. As some of my hon. Friends know, I am associated with the Outward Bound Trust, and we seek to give monthly character training courses for boys of all sorts and conditions of life, the overwhelming number of whom come from State-aided schools. From the experience of over 10,000 boys who have taken such a course, I am quite convinced that it would immensely enhance the chances of the boys who have not had a boarding school education if they were given an opportunity of a residential monthly course under the particular circumstances provided at an Outward Bound course. Time, however, does not permit me to enlarge upon that.
There is also the point that at Dartmouth there should be opportunities not only to bring the boy in contact almost exclusively with his future nautical contemporaries but also with the civilian world, with boys from industry sponsored by individual firms. Without doubt, such courses would provide a valuable assessment of leadership, self-reliance, integrity, and so on, in the course of even one

month, which would afford valuable evidence for the selectors to weigh with the other evidence available to them.
In many respects it might be described as a miniature public school with special characteristics. There is no doubt that those who are asked to assess the qualities of an individual are far more likely to discern what he is made of if they can see him on a residential basis. I hope, therefore, that we shall not lose sight of the fact that the fresh fields of recruitment might well be enlarged if the facilities are improved, and I believe that the way I have described would be a most valuable addition.

6.52 p.m.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Commander Allan Noble): I have delayed rising as long as possible because I felt that as many hon. Members should speak in this debate as possible, but it may be convenient to the Committee if I wind up the debate with a few remarks. I am sure all hon. Members will agree that this has been a good debate which, if I may say so, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) opened in a comprehensive and helpful way. As one would expect, there have been varied opinions, which is right in a debate of this kind, but perhaps I may be allowed to bring it back to its true perspective. Some hon. Members, and especially the hon. and gallant Member for Hull, East (Commander Pursey)——

Commander Pursey: Why pick me up?

Commander Noble: —seemed to think that the Government were producing a revolutionary change. The history of this is that in 1948 the party opposite, who were in power, changed the entry from 13 to 16. On that occasion there was no committee like this, there was no debate. All that happened was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) came to the House one day and announced the new entry in answer to a Question. That was the first intimation the House had.

Mr. Callaghan: I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that there was not only assent but agreement amongst the Board of Admiralty at the time.

Commander Noble: That would not be for me to say. I am saying that the


first the House of Commons knew about the change to the 16 entry was when one of my predecessors came to the House and told us.
This is no new problem. It has been going on for two or three years, and when this Government came into office my right hon. Friend set up a Committee to go into the problem. Tonight we are discussing its recommendations. We are glad to have all the opinions which have been expressed and, as my right hon. Friend said, he is discussing this matter with other authorities, and all opinions will be taken into account.
There is one thing this debate has done, if it has done nothing else, and that is to lay the bogy of the Admiralty interview board to some extent—if one does lay a bogy. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East referred to this, as did my hon. Friends behind me. He was a little unfair because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) said, the Report indicates that the error has been small although there may have been some unwitting bias. I was sorry the hon. Gentleman did not quote from the Minority Report, because the writer of it had been on four interview boards and knew what he was talking about. He said on page 109:
I am satisfied that many boys from maintained grammar schools have entered for the examination and have succeeded at the written test, without having any approximation to the potential personal qualities of a future naval officer.
I remember answering a Question from the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, (Dr. King) who asked why it was that so many had failed. Perhaps here I may answer the only point of fact which I have been asked in this examination—[Laughter.] I mean debate, though I agree it has been an examination. [HON. MEMBERS: "Failed."] The only point of fact raised in this debate has been why those figures for the first three years and the last three years seem so much the same. The answer is that in the last three years the age band was extended and boys were able to have two shots at the examination.
I think we have always made it quite clear that the best boys from the grammar schools were absolutely first-class. I remember answering a Question once and perhaps the Committee will excuse me if I give the answer again.

It is about the examination for entry in May, 1953. Of the first five successful candidates for the executive branch, three—the first, fourth and fifth—were grammar school boys. Of the candidates who were successful both in the written examination and at the interview, the four with the highest interview marks were grammar school boys. So it is the case really that grammar schools do provide some of the best boys, but there are not enough of them coming forward.
I have spent a day with one of these interview boards, as no doubt did my predecessor, and I found that my opinions largely agreed with theirs at the end of the day. Going back to Dartmouth since, it has been interesting to see those boys in uniform and to see what they are making of the life there. I hope this debate will give more confidence in the interview boards, and I should like to read an unsolicited testimonial to these boards in the form of a letter received from a boy in March, 1953, as follows:
I read with annoyance the report in the papers of complaints in the House of Commons about the Dartmouth interview board. A Member appears to have stated that would-be cadets are only interviewed for a few minutes. I was a candidate last February and spent 45 minutes to an hour on three interviews. The board was most affable and helpful. The interviewing officers also had us under observation for a day, so I think the Member has his facts wrong. I think it was also hinted that social origin influenced selection, and there has been much talk previously of public school preference. I should like to say that I have been educated at State schools all my life and I don't personally believe the interviewing officers are influenced one way or the other. I was unlucky and did not come up to the eyesight standard but I should like to say that as far as I am concerned the tests were perfectly fair and all the officers I met were extremely friendly. I apologise for wasting your time with this letter but I felt I should write.
In conclusion, it has been emphasised by many hon. Members that we should do what is best for the Navy. In doing that we want to recruit our officers from the widest possible field. I agree with that implicitly, but I am sure that it would not be the best for the Navy if we introduced any measures so clearly contentious that they would stand no chance of survival. I should like to emphasise what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland) said, that we do not want the officer entry to become a pawn in party politics. On the other hand,


the Committee will, I am certain, agree that it would be manifestly unfair if naval opinion were not given its proper weight in arriving at what is best for the Royal Navy.
I hope that the fact that the Admiralty have set up the Committee, have published the Report, which is not usual, and have listened to all points of view, not only here today, but outside, will be taken as an earnest that we are approaching this matter without prejudice and with as detached a view as possible. When we do take our decision, I hope that all those concerned will give it their full support, so that the Navy can be given every opportunity of a wide selection of the best possible material.
Whereupon Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again"—[Mr. Oakshott]—put, and agreed to.
Committee report Progress; to sit again tomorrow.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED)

7.2 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I beg to move,
That this House expresses its deep concern at the position of the long-term unemployed arising from the termination of Section 62 of the National Insurance Act, 1946, and, in particular, of those who, by reason of their disability, are handicapped in securing employment; and urges the Minister of National Insurance to introduce forthwith a short measure continuing the provisions of Section 62, pending consideration of the provisions of the Act at the quinquennial review in 1954.
In raising this matter, I am returning to an old battleground. This is the first time since 1946 that we have had to discuss in the House the treatment of the unemployed. It is a matter of very great concern to many people, and I hope that it is not an indication of what is to happen in future that on this first occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of National Insurance has had to deal with the unemployed we have to stage a debate on the treatment of the unemployed under his regime.
The substance of the Motion deals with Section 62 of the National Insurance Act, 1946. That Section embodied the philosophy that the unemployed should not be penalised by the State for

the State's inability to provide jobs. That was the first time that that philosophy was expressed in legislation, and since the passage of the Act in 1946 we have had hardly any complaint about the way in which the unemployed have been treated. I give credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) for the splendid job of work that he did in piloting the Act through the House. It was his advocacy which enabled the House to accept the 1946 Bill, and in particular Section 62, about which we are concerned tonight.
The first thing that Section 62 of the Act did was to preserve the 180 days' benefit for the unemployed man who was insured. It also provided that a further possible 130 days' benefit, making 310 days' benefit in all, could be obtained by the unemployed man. That was the end of his statutory benefit. Then it had a provision whereby any man who exhausted his statutory benefit became entitled to, or could claim, extended benefit.

The question of extended benefit was a matter of very bitter debate, both in Committee and at all stages of the Bill. The extended benefit provision enabled a man who had exhausted his statutory benefit to go before a local tribunal to prove that he was fit and available for work, and, on production of that proof, he was granted six months' extension of standard rate of benefit. At the end of that six months he had only to prove the same thing and he was given an extension for another six months.

The result has been to provide a rate of benefit for an unemployed man, for whom the State could not find employment, without regard altogether as to what means he had. In fact, in relation to the unemployed under this provision, the means test was abolished, as we thought, for all time. The money for this extended benefit was found from the national Exchequer. It was not a burden on the Insurance Fund, neither was it a burden on the Assistance Board. The Assistance Board did not touch the unemployed man or his dependants.

The scheme has worked exceptionally well. For the first time in this century unemployment has ceased to be a source of civil discord. We have had no demonstrations. I can hardly remember a Question about it being raised in the House.


There have been no complaints from either side of the House as to the way in which the scheme has worked. It was a venture. It was trying out something that was new and, looking back, we can say that the scheme has worked with great credit to the country and with great satisfaction to all concerned.

But Section 62 of the Act, by its own provision in subsection (5), came to an end last Saturday, 4th July. On that date extended benefit came to an end and men who were not qualified for additional benefit and who had exhausted their 180 days' statutory benefit were put off benefit and today are on the books of the Assistance Board.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. R. H. Turton): No.

Mr. Ness Edwards: We shall deal with that later. Men who entered the insurance scheme after the appointed day have already had notice. In my own town, they were told last Thursday that after Saturday they must make their claim to the Assistance Board. Perhaps the Minister will be able to clear this up, because it is an action that has already been taken by the Ministry of Labour. The notice has been issued, just as the other notices giving an indication of the additional days due have also been issued.
Why was there this automatic provision for the termination of Section 62 of the Act? I have looked back at the debates, and I find that my right hon. Friend had this to say about it:
I have been asked why this should only continue for five years. The reason is that this is a very big venture. We believe that this Clause can be made to work. … Therefore, we think that we should include the provision that this scheme should last for five years, and at the end of five years we"—
note, "we"—
can take whatever steps are necessary in the interests of improvement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 4th April, 1946; c. 550.]
That is what my right hon. Friend said. Despite all the apprehensions of my hon. Friends on this side of the House as to whether the scheme would work, I think all of them would say that it has worked, and worked perfectly.
The reasons for the scheme were put most strongly in the Committee by my

hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton). I read his speech again today, and I thought that he was stating the case for a continuation of Section 62. My right hon. Friend, however, made a prophetic error. I am told that when politicians become prophets, they are apt to go wrong.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Not all of them.

Mr. Ness Edwards: In regard to the doubts of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who foresaw this position, my right hon. Friend said that when we came to the end of the five years, an attempt would be made to place the unemployed man from benefit on to the Assistance Board.
Generally speaking, however, the scheme has worked well; but instead of my right hon. Friend now being on the other side of the House, with power to improve the scheme, to amend it or to continue it, we now have on the other side the Minister's party, who were against the scheme altogether in 1946.

Mr. Raymond Gower: Is the right hon. Member aware that until this debate a lot of back benchers on this side of the House had no foresight that this was likely to happen or was happening? The first I heard of it was today, apart from Press reports.

Mr. Ness Edwards: It is not for me to take up the attitude of having to enlighten Members of the Conservative Party about what their Government are doing, or not doing.
In order to understand what is being done today we have to consider what was said in 1946 when this scheme was being debated in this House and upstairs in Committee. We can see that what the Conservative Party did not have the power to do in 1946 they are now seeking to do now they have the power. My view is that one cannot understand the tactic of the Government in this matter unless one reads what they attempted to do when this National Insurance Act was a Bill under discussion upstairs.
In 1946 the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) moved to delete Clause 61, as it then was, which eventually became Section 62. He wanted the unemployed, after they had had a maximum of 312 days' benefit, to go


straight on to the means test. The present Minister of National Insurance, if he will charge his memory, will probably remember saying:
Whether this extended benefit is to be administered by the tribunal or by the Minister, we are opposed to it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 3rd April, 1946; c. 515.]
When the matter went to a Division in Committee the party of the right hon. Gentleman voted against Section 62, voted against the scheme and voted against extended benefit. Now the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden is Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Gentleman opposite is Minister of National Insurance.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was obviously motivated by two reasons. The first is the old one that the long-term unemployed ought to be placed in the charge of the Assistance Board and the other is to save the direct financial burden of extended benefit that is being given to all men who have exhausted their 180 days. If he were to get his way and if nothing were done, 48,000 who are today unemployed would be placed under the charge of the Assistance Board. One can imagine what a row there would be in this country—perhaps extending to the benches opposite—if 48,000 men and women were transferred from benefit to the means test on one and the same day. That would have been politically inconvenient and, in addition, would have thrown a burden on the administration which probably the administration would not have been able to carry.
The problem facing the Government was how to achieve their purpose without causing a major political row and how to do it without straining the administration. A very convenient way was found. The instrument to achieve the object which the party opposite had in mind in 1946 is the National Insurance (Additional Days of Unemployment Benefit) Regulations, 1953, Command Paper 848. I do not know how many hon. Members have attempted to read these Regulations. I spent some time on them and I was a bit shocked. I do not think we should submit the Regulations to a precise analysis this evening. My right hon. and hon. Friends will have to pray against these Regulations at an appropriate time when they can submit them to a very close analysis. How do

they affect the unemployed? I will quote from them and perhaps my hon. Friends will try to pick out from the quotations what is really meant. I quote from the leaflet issued to the unemployed. This is an extract from Leaflet N.I. 12:
Duration of Benefit: Additional Days.
Every claimant who satisfies the conditions and is not disqualified may receive 180 days of benefit in one period of interruption of employment. This is the basic number of days but a person who, when he reaches his 156th day of benefit, has been insured for at least five years under the National Insurance scheme, whether he has been insured as an insured person or otherwise, may qualify for additional days of benefit.
The significant thing is that he must be insured for at least five years. If he came in in 1948 after the appointed day, on the face of it he does not appear to qualify for additional days and goes straight to the means test under the Assistance Board. I quote further:
For such a person …
one who is now qualified—
the number of additional days is calculated by allowing three days for every five class I (employed person's) contributions which he has paid in the last ten contribution periods, less one day for every ten days unemployment benefit which he has drawn in the last four contribution periods. Both the ten and the four-year periods end with the last contribution year before the benefit year in which the claimant reaches his 156th day of benefit. The maximum number of additional days which may be allowed for one period of interruption of employment is 312, thus enabling a total of 492 days of benefit to be paid in such a period.
This may be very simple, but I doubt whether one man in 10,000 unemployed will understand, or be able to calculate, what are the additional days to which he will be entitled. Summarising what these new Regulations do—they preserve the old 180 days, those who have not been insured for five years go straight on the means test and the maximum days benefit have been increased from 310 to 492. After that 492 days they go to the Assistance Board. Extended benefit, which previously was a direct charge on the Exchequer, has gone altogether. The increase in benefit days is made a charge on the Insurance Fund. What have these Regulations done? They have ensured that at the expiration of a certain period of benefit all the unemployed go on to the means test. I do not think that that can be challenged for one moment.
But this increase is not permanent. I would draw the attention of the House to the Report of the Advisory Committee in which, in paragraph 6, page 5, additional number of days are dealt with. This is what the Report says:
It has been represented to us that the number of additional days for which the draft regulations make provision would, in the event of a prolonged national trade depression, be excessive;"—
I should like to ask whoever is to reply for the Government, who made those representations? Were they representations from the Government? Was it the Government's view that the number of days approved in these Regulations was excessive?
The Report goes on:
and that they might impose a burden on the National Insurance Fund greater than it could bear. It would be preferable, it was urged"—
I would again ask, who urged it?—
to make a more restricted provision for additional days which could confidently be maintained in all circumstances. After full consideration we feel unable to accept this view.
The Committee then go on and give their reasons. Accordingly, it appears that when we get the quinquennial review this temporary improvement in the number of standard days, these additional days themselves, may be under attack. We may see a further attack on the rights of the unemployed next year, when there is that review.
The sum total of these Regulations is that not a single person now in receipt of benefit will be a penny better off. Those who came into insurance in 1948 after the appointed day and have had their 180 days' benefit, go straight to the Assistance Board. All the unemployed who exhaust their statutory benefit and additional days and are in receipt of either war or industrial disablement pensions, compensation or industrial injuries benefit, or who have other income, will probably be worse off under this arrangement.
The only person to be better off is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and we should like to know how much he expects to save, either directly or indirectly, upon the disabled unemployed of this country by this method. The Insurance Fund loses, and it is the elderly and disabled unemployed who are to suffer. I went

to some trouble this weekend to find out exactly what was happening. I examined the position in a township that was not in the heart of a coalfield but was on the fringe of a coalfield.
This is what I found. On a male register of 200, 89 unemployed persons had exhausted their 180 days and therefore come under the new Regulations. Two were struck off altogether and were told to go to the Assistance Board. Twenty-two will get 10 weeks of additional days, five will get 12 weeks of additional days, 11 will get 13 weeks, two will get 14 weeks, five will get 15 weeks, seven will get 16 weeks, nine will get 20 weeks and seven will get 21 weeks Altogether, in 21 weeks, 68 of the 89 men will have exhausted all rights under the National Insurance Fund.
The most alarming thing is that of these 68 men 34 are pneumoconiosis victims, and all are over 40 years of age. All of them are in receipt of compensation or industrial injuries benefit; some of them have had other additional benefits from the miners' funds; others have additional benefits from a private insurance scheme at that colliery. Most of them will suffer a reduction in income of between 4s. and 15s. a week. All of them will be subjected to the means test and all that that involves. The older men and the disabled are the ones to suffer.
It must be remembered that in Great Britain at the moment—I am using the latest available figures—there are 55,751 disabled men on the unemployment register. This is the field in which this blow will fall. Men who have been wounded in war, men who have been injured in industry—these are the ones who will feel the effect of this new tactic of this Government. Half of the registered disabled unemployed are war pensioners. By the Bill which was debated last week, to which some reference was made earlier, when the right hon. Gentleman corrected me, the war disabled are being passed to the Ministry of National Insurance. It would be more true to say that the Ministry will pass them to the Assistance Board. By this slightly longer road, by this more circuitous arrangement, the Tory view that the long-term unemployed should be pushed from benefit into the field of the Assistance Board has been achieved.
There has been no complaint about the working of Section 62. We have had peace in this field. Goodness knows that prior to the war we had many battles on the Floor of this House about this matter, but where we have had peace and comparative contentment this Government precipitate strife, and do so in relation to the most defenceless people in the country. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer talked on Saturday about the difficulties of this country, about the importance of raising exports and the difficult economic battle which we were having. I make no prophecies but I express the hope that we shall never again have large-scale unemployment in this country; but if we are to experience difficult economic circumstances, if it does happen that we get a large volume of unemployment, the great havoc that will be caused in the lives of those people for whom the State cannot find employment is something which right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House will recognise.
There is our case. We do not want the treatment of the unemployed to become a foremost question on the political battleground. We thought we had saved them from that, but these Regulations, and allowing Section 62 to lapse in this way, without an adequate provision for the long-term unemployed, is creating a situation in which there is bound to be continuous debate and continuous conflict in the House.
When one reads what happened in the Committee stage of the Bill, when we discussed the Clause which eventually became Section 62, one is bound to come to the conclusion that here is a conspiracy against the long-term unemployed. I ask the Government to reconsider what they are doing in this matter and to see that such treatment is not given to the long-term disabled unemployed, so as to prevent heavy conflict in this House.

7.30 p.m.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake): This is a Supply Day allotted to the Committee of Supply to enable the Opposition to choose subjects for debate. In Committee of Supply however it would not have been in order to discuss matters requiring legislation. I

take it as a compliment that the Opposition have so far found nothing in the administration of my Department to criticise upon a Supply Day in the ordinary way. The Government have willingly agreed therefore to take Supply formally this evening in order to enable the Opposition to raise an issue which would require legislation, namely the automatic expiry on 5th July of this year of Section 62 of the National Insurance Act which they carried through this House in 1946.
To judge from the tone of some of the comments and some of the statements made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), one would think that the Government were repealing Section 62 of the Act. Of course, that is not the case. Section 62 expired automatically at the end of five years. I welcome this opportunity therefore of explaining both the reasons which have deterred the Government from introducing special legislation to take the place of Section 62, and what I think is the generous scheme we have devised for giving additional periods of unemployment benefit to those whose normal entitlement to it would otherwise run out.
The right hon. Gentleman, and in fact all hon. Members, have had ample notice that Section 62 expired two days ago. That was laid down in the Act of 1946, and actually it is as long ago as 9th February since I announced in this House, in answer to a Question that the Government intended to bring into operation a new and more generous system of added days of unemployment benefit. I have no quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman or the Party opposite on choosing this subject for debate, but I am surprised that it was not raised some time ago, because the intentions of the Government were made clear as long ago as last February.

Mr. James Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman is speaking about the time which has elapsed since he made the announcement. May I ask whether he proposes to report to the House his discussion with the T.U.C. and their request that this Section should be continued?

Mr. Peake: I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me to ask about that matter. I have always regarded it as improper to say whether or not the T.U.C. have approached me on a particular topic, unless they have agreed that I should


make such a statement. I attach the very greatest importance to the discussions which I have with the T.U.C. from time to time, but I neither wish to confirm nor deny—unless very hard pressed—whether or not I have been approached by the T.U.C. on this matter.

Mr. Griffiths: As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, we on this side of the House have close contact with the T.U.C. It is within our knowledge that they have asked the Minister to do precisely what I said.

Mr. Peake: If the right hon. Gentleman makes a categorical statement, I must say that I have not received any official representation in favour of the continuance of Section 62 from the T.U.C.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I am a member——

Mr. Peake: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have an opportunity to speak later, and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be replying later to the debate——

Mr. Houghton: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to mislead the House.

Mr. Peake: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have not misled the House.

Mr. Griffiths: This is a matter of importance. Would the right hon. Gentleman care to read this letter which I hold in my hand?

Mr. Peake: We cannot deal with the debate in this way. I will pass the letter to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary——

Mr. Griffiths: It is a letter from the trade union——

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have two right hon. Gentlemen speaking at the same time.

Mr. Peake: There has been some suggestion that this five-year period put into Section 62 by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was in some way connected, or ought to be connected, with the quinquennial review of the finances of the insurance scheme. The right hon. Member for Caerphilly quoted

from the discussions in the Standing Committee in April, 1946. My right hon. Friend the present Chancellor of the Exchequer asked then what was meant by that five-year period. The right hon. Member for Llanelly replied, and the right hon. Member for Caerphilly has today quoted some of the words used by his right hon. Friend, but he omitted the most vital sentence. I should like to tell the House what the right hon. Gentleman did say in reply to the question about what was the meaning of the five-year period. The right hon. Gentleman said:
The reason is that this is a very big venture. We believe that this Clause can be made to work. Before five years are up, we shall know. We shall have the returns and"—
these are the important words—
long before the end of that period, we shall be in a position to examine it and review it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 4th April, 1946; c. 550.]
On reaching the Ministry of National Insurance, I had to face the question of how this provision was operated. I would ask the House to look for a moment at the history of it.
It has always been accepted generally, though not without some difference of opinion among hon. Gentlemen opposite, that unemployment benefit, unlike sickness benefit, should be limited in duration. I need not go deeply into the reason for this limitation. But a limitation on the period of benefit has always been part of the scheme, and a limitation was re-enacted in the Act of 1946. There was a debate in this House on 23rd May in which a minority, led by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), voted for an unlimited benefit. But all the sponsors of the Motion today who were in the House at that time—I except the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton)—supported the right hon. Gentleman opposite in the Lobbies in favour of a limited period.
Section 62 was included in the Act for one purpose and one purpose only. It was to enable those who had run out of benefit and whose unemployment was due entirely to temporary dislocation arising out of the war, to receive it subject to a tribunal's recommendation. Section 62 is a curious hybrid between insurance and assistance. The money for it was to come from the Exchequer, and not out of the Insurance Fund. Whether


this extended benefit was to be payable in any individual case was to depend upon the recommendation of a local appeal tribunal. The tribunal, however, were expressly prohibited when they considered an application from paying any regard to the financial circumstances of the applicant.
It is as well to look back and consider what was in the mind of the Government of the day when they incorporated Section 62 in the Act. We had had the Beve-ridge Report which had estimated postwar unemployment at 8½ per cent. of the employed population. That was accepted as an average or a normal figure and that assumption was adopted in the White Paper on Employment Policy which was published by the Coalition Government. These estimates have happily not been fulfilled, but they were generally accepted at that time, and 8½ per cent. would have meant nearly two million persons unemployed.
Section 62 contemplated excessive unemployment due to post-war dislocation. It assumed very large numbers of unemployed and consequently, as a result of that, very large numbers indeed who would have run out of ordinary benefit. I want to quote to the House from the instructions to local tribunals which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly issued in June, 1948, a few weeks before the Section came into operation. The instructions said:
Extended benefit. The primary object of extended benefit is to make provision for those persons who, owing to the dislocation of industry following the war, are temporarily unable to find employment pending the development of plans under the full employment policy and who have exhausted their rights to ordinary benefit. The life of the provision is accordingly limited by Section 62 (5) to five years from the appointed day, that is, from 5th July, 1948.
Those were the instructions, and it has been upon the basis of post-war dislocation of industry that the tribunals have had to try to decide individual cases which have come before them.
Of course, the Beveridge forecast has, most fortunately, been belied by experience. Not only has unemployment been continuously below 2½ per cent. since the war, but the numbers on extended benefit have never been more than a small fraction of what was anticipated. They

have varied between 33,000 and 55,000, today's figure being about 48,000, and this despite the fact that refusals of applications have only been about 12 per cent. to 14 per cent.
I can give the House, as a result of careful inquiry, some information about the categories of persons in receipt of extended benefit and of the duration for which they have been receiving it. First, it would be a mistake to assume that they are a static body, that they are the same people going on extended benefit month after month and year after year. In fact, the hard core comprises only about 6,000 cases who have drawn it continuously for several years. The remainder come and go. Some of them on extended benefit find jobs; some pass on to other forms of benefit, such as sickness benefit or retirement pension. Of those who receive it more than 40 per cent. do so for a period of less than 12 months.
It is our hope and belief that the new provisions for added days of benefit which have just come into operation will pick up a large number of those who might otherwise apply for extended benefit. Our inquiries show that the cases are spread fairly evenly all over the country. But here is a fact of some importance and some relevance to our debate. We find that one in four of those on extended benefit, having obtained extended benefit, go to the National Assistance Board for supplementation. Do not let us imagine that that means the man walking round to the Assistance Board office every time he has to draw supplementation. These people, whether they are on extended benefit, on Assistance, or on a combination of both, draw their benefit at the employment exchange. In the Development Areas we find that one in two of those on extended benefit are also going to the National Assistance Board to get their benefit supplemented.
I must say a few words as to the class of persons drawing benefit. They are quite a different class to what was anticipated. Something less than half of them are suffering from some kind or other of disability, and of course a proportion—a large proportion probably—are in receipt of some other source of income, such as workmen's compensation in the cases mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly, or industrial injuries benefit.
The disabled naturally excite our sympathy. So far as the workmen's compensation cases are concerned, I have no doubt that some of them would have obtained certificates of incapacity for work and would have drawn sickness benefit in preference to extended benefit had there not been imposed, by Regulations made under the 1946 Act by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly, a provision against them drawing dependants' allowances in full together with sickness benefit. I am happy to say that I have recently revoked this disqualification and, for the future, those who are incapable of work—and of course many of these people are just on the border line between capacity and incapacity for work—will be able to draw dependants' allowances with sickness benefit in full over and above their workmen's compensation payments.
Apart from the disabled, another fairly large category comprises married women whom it is difficult to place in employment on account of their limited availability. Then we also have a substantial number of persons who are now described as persons without a settled way of living and for whom there were other descriptions in days gone by. For various reasons it is almost impossible for the labour exchanges to place many of these in employment.
Finally, there are a number of persons receiving extended benefit for whom it could never possibly have been contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman. This is the class to which the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Daines) drew attention during the debate on the National Insurance Bill last year. They are persons with superannuation rights maturing at the age of 60. They include people such as retired civil servants, local government employees and officials of banks and insurance companies. On superannuation between the ages of 60 and 65, they are very difficult to place in suitable jobs. Although they have good vocational pensions, the local appeal tribunals are expressly prohibited by Section 62 from taking their financial circumstances into account.
These are the facts which confronted me when I had to consider the imminent expiry of Section 62 on 5th July this year. It was clear to me that the whole purpose of the scheme had, fortunately, been

frustrated, and it had never materialised; that is to say, we had never suffered, thank goodness, from the dislocation of employment in the post-war years which had been anticipated when Section 62 was incorporated in the Bill.
The administration by the local tribunals—I am sure they have done their best to make a job of this—has necessarily been very uneven. There was no method of co-ordinating the decisions of the local appeal tribunals, and it seemed rather hit or miss whether a man got his extended benefit or not. Benefit by decision of a tribunal of this character in this class of case does not seem to me to be a very satisfactory method. I think that sometimes the man who could tell the tale got his benefit, whereas the fellow who was not very good at explaining himself failed to do so.
There is, however, one class which naturally excite sympathy, and it is these people about whom the Opposition express concern in their Motion. They are the small pockets—smallish taken in proportion to the problem as a whole—of partially disabled persons in the Development Areas, such as those who suffer from pneumoconiosis. Let it be observed that half the cases of extended benefit in the Development Areas are already going to the Assistance Board to supplement their extended benefit.
It is suggested that some of these people, if they have to go to the Assistance Board, will suffer substantial hardship by reduction of their incomes when extended benefit comes to an end. We have made provision that, when extended benefits ended the day before yesterday, all these people go back to ordinary benefit, some of them for a considerable period—for periods varying between 10 and 40 weeks—but I want to give in figures, so that the House may consider the matter in proportion, the sort of effect which the ending of extended benefit may have on a typical workmen's compensation case or two.
Let us take the case of a single man, partially disabled with a workman's compensation weekly payment of 30s. He is in the employment field, and goes to his Ministry of Labour employment exchange and draws his extended benefit of 32s. 6d., so that his total weekly income from these sources is 62s. 6d. If and when he comes


off extended benefit, what will happen to him? For the future, he would retain his weekly compensation payment of 30s., and the Assistance Board payment, with allowance for the disregards, would be calculated at 25s., plus an allowance for his rent. If his weekly income under extended benefit was 62s. 6d., it would become 55s., plus an allowance for the rent.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Peake: So that hon. Gentlemen opposite shall not think that I am doing anything at all slick in quoting that case, I will give them another, which I am sure they will think of as being a very much harder case. This was brought to my knowledge by an hon. Member as a case in which hardship occurred. It was the case of a miner with six children, four of them of school age or below, and he was partially disabled with pneumoconiosis. This was how his income worked out after the tribunal had decided that extended benefits in his case ought not to continue.
He had the maximum payment under the Workmen's Compensation Acts for a married man with children, which is 55s. He had the miner's supplement of 20s., which made it 75s. He got three family allowances, amounting to 24s., which, added on, made a total of 99s. His needs over and above that were assessed by the Assistance Board at 45s. 6d., which gave him a weekly income of £7 4s. 6d. Of his six children, four were of school age or less, and the other two were going out to work, and, no doubt, making some contribution to the maintenance of the home. I do not think that that figure of £7 4s. 6d. is a big figure, but it does not compare unfavourably with the recent awards of the Agricultural Wages Board given to agricultural labourers some days ago.
I have taken extreme cases, in one of which a man who was taken off extended benefit and transferred to the Assistance Board had, at the end of the week, an income of £7 4s. 6d. It is difficult to put forward such cases of some loss of income owing to the lapse of Section 62 as being cases in which real hardship is going to arise. I think the supporters of the Motion have overlooked the more humane and generous way in which assistance is operated today, and have failed to observe the improvement in the standards of those

on assistance which has taken place since 1946. The household means test disappeared in 1940. The National Assistance Act was passed in 1948, two years after Section 62 was framed, and it further limited the responsibilities of members of the family towards each other.
That is one aspect of the case, but I think the House would like to know that, by the best comparisons we can make, the actual living standards of those on assistance has improved by 25 per cent. since 1946; that is, in the short period of seven years, and that has been achieved under Governments of different complexions, all of which equally have the interests of the poorest of the poor at heart.

Mr. Spencer Summers: By what criterion is that 25 per cent. judged?

Mr. Peake: Scale rates during that period have very nearly doubled, whereas the cost of living has gone up by something very much less than 100 per cent.
These are the reasons we came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to devise new legislation to continue a half-way house between insurance and assistance. We should have had to devise some quite new formula, because we could not go on pretending that people should get extended benefit on the grounds of the post-war dislocation of industry which has not, in fact, occurred. I have not the slightest idea as to what the new formula should have been, but, certainly we could not have gone on with the old. Our attitude has, I think, been constructive.
Now I turn to the new Regulations for added days to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite made reference. These Regulations provide a maximum period of insurance benefit longer than has ever been known in the history of unemployment benefit in this country. The position as I found it was that the new entrants to insurance in 1948 had until the present no entitlement to added days' benefit. Those insured under the old system could draw benefit, if they had a perfect insurance record, for a period of five months beyond the normal seven months laid down in the Act, making 12 months in all.
The new Regulations give entitlement to added days' benefit to the new entrants


of 1948 who have now, of course, completed five years' insurance, and to those insured under the old scheme. The number of additional days will depend on the number of contributions paid during the previous 10 years and the amount of benefit drawn during the last four. As the pre-1948 records are, however, incomplete, we are assuming in favour of persons insured before that date that they had all paid the maximum possible number of contributions.
The new scheme provides additional benefit during the extended period, up to a maximum of 12 months, instead of only five months as hitherto. That is to say, normal benefit may be drawn for up to 19 months in all and for periods which approach that, even where there is a somewhat defective contribution record.
I laid this scheme before the National Insurance Advisory Committee, which, as hon. Members know, has representatives of both sides of industry on it, on 3rd February last, and they reported on it on 16th April. I think I ought to quote a sentence or two from their Report. In paragraph 8, they say:
The whole system of extended benefit was, under the terms of the Act, to come to an end five years after the National Insurance Scheme began, since its essential purpose was to cover the unemployment due to temporary problems of industrial conversion to peace-time production.
That is a statement by a body independent of myself. It is not a statement on behalf of the Government, but the view of the National Insurance Advisory Committee. They went on to say:
The system of extended benefits has, in effect, been used to provide for many cases such as will be dealt with by the present proposals as to additional days. … We consider, however, that it is right that the permanent provision should be as generous as is possible, since it will, to a substantial extent, deal with cases which have been dealt with in the past under the extended benefit ararngements.
I may also add in explanation of the position that the National Insurance Advisory Committee examined and approved at the same time transitional Regulations which dealt in particular with persons now in receipt of extended benefit. As a result of these Regulations, which I am afraid are rather complex, nearly all of those on extended benefit today will return to ordinary benefit for periods which vary between 10 and 40 weeks. Each of them has been informed

by letter of the exact amount of their new entitlement.
I hope that the House will welcome and approve the new arrangements. We get back to the basic distinction between insurance as a right by virtue of contributions, and assistance for those in need. I have little doubt that the majority of persons who are now granted extended benefit, and about whom concern has been expressed, will be absorbed either on to full benefit under the normal system, or, alternatively, will qualify for sickness benefit through incapacity for work. I trust, therefore, that the House will reject the Motion before it.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the National Insurance Advisory Committee. Did he ask that Committee for their advice concerning whether it might be desirable to continue Section 62?

Mr. Peake: No, certainly not. The question put to the National Insurance Advisory Committee was that concerning the new added days Regulation. That is perfectly clear.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. William Blyton: To me this is a sorry day, because I happened to be on the Committee in 1946 when Section 61 was debated.

Miss Margaret Herbison: Section 62:

Mr. Blyton: It was Section 61 in the Committee, and became Section 62 later.
I crossed swords with the Minister of National Insurance and also with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that occasion, and if anyone cares to look at the report of my speeches in that Committee it will be found that I made it perfectly plain that I was pleased to see the end of the obnoxious household means test. What have we now? We are told that this is more generous. In the light of my own experience, I am always wary of the Tories when they start telling the unemployed man that they are going to be generous.
I spent 25 years on the courts of referees under the old Unemployment Insurance Acts. It was my job to try to place disabled men in employment in an industrial area where there was no work to be had. The Minister talks


about the uneven decisions of the tribunals, but we must remember that, if we are to determine the extended benefit of an applicant, we must also take into account the conditions of the area in which he lives, and conditions in Tyneside are entirely different from those in Bournemouth.
When we were in power, we always recognised that there had to be a statutory limit to benefit, but we also recognised that there had to be extended benefit, and extended benefit has been paid from as far back as 1930. The Minister knows as well as I do about the old 78 days review under the old Unemployment Insurance Act. Before a man received extended benefit, he had to come up every 78 days and tell of every place he had visited in order to prove that he was looking for work.
This problem of extended benefit is no new problem. Whereas we abolished the household means test under Section 62, the Tory Party are now resurrecting it. These Regulations will not only affect the unemployed man; they will also affect the able-bodied man in industry who may become unemployed tomorrow for a long period, as well as the disabled soldier or the civilian drawing a civil disability pension who was bombed in the last war.
The trade unions made overtures to the Minister to retain Section 62, but those overtures were rejected. The reason for our alarm is that we now know that the unemployed of this country are once again to face the ugly means test after their additional days of extended benefit have expired. After a maximum of 312 days of extended benefit they will have to go on to National Assistance.
The new Regulation establishes two fundamental principles. It brings back the means test, but, for the first time since 1946, it puts the cost of the extended benefit, not on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but on the Insurance Fund. In the old days, the applicant had to prove that he was looking for work and to show that at all times he was available for work before he could get the extended benefit. Section 62 shifted the onus from the individual to the Minister.
The tribunal under Section 62 were prohibited from taking the financial resources of the applicant into consideration.

The two things which the tribunal had to determine in relation to extended benefit were the availability for work, which is always proved by the fact that the man was signing the unemployed register; and the industrial conditions of the area, which the tribunal had to take into consideration, having regard to the circumstances and disability of the applicant who came before them. Since Section 62 has operated, the Minister has said, nearly 90 per cent. of the applicants have been given their extended benefit. Under Section 62 there is no limit to extended benefit. The Tribunal can extend it time after time and no limit is put upon them.
By the new Regulations, the Minister will say that at such and such a time shall their extended benefit end and shall they go to the National Assistance Board. Section 62 lifted the unemployed man from the undignified position of seeking assistance from the Board and now, because his crime, as in the past, is to be out of employment, due to many causes, he is to be subject to the means test based on a leaflet A.L. 18 which has been issued by the Ministry.
This is what the unemployed man has to face. In order to apply the assistance grant Regulations, the officer must know whether the applicant is living alone or with other people, whether he has any dependants, how much rent he pays, and the amount and nature of any resources possessed by him, his wife—or husband—and any dependants living with him. If that is not a household means test, as we knew it in the past, I should like to know what a means test is—and I ask that as one who has experienced it.
This Section is to be allowed to lapse. The Minister said he was not repealing it, and that is quite true, but he is certainly not resurrecting Section 62, which protects the unemployed man from the household means test. The formula which determines a man's extended benefit is absolutely beyond me. I have tried to follow it. We have to have the man's insurance record before us before we can know. How is a man who has worked in the shipyards until he is 40 or 50 to know what extended days are to be given to him? I cannot tell. He has to depend on the Minister's Department as to whether the additional days he is given are correct or not.
Be that as it may, we have to bear in mind that the maximum they can get is 312 days. The vast majority of these 48,000 people have poor insurance records. As the Minister said, many of them cannot work because of injuries. An injured man has difficulty in finding suitable work. The same applies to the civilian who has been hit with a bomb or the ex-Service man with his disability pension or the man with pneumoconiosis. I have seen forms by which men have been notified that they have 80 or 90 days before them. What does that mean to these people? It means that when their additional days have been exhausted they must go to the National Assistance Board.

The question we must ask is, how will it affect their income? Will it reduce their standard of life? In hundreds of cases, the answer is "Yes." It is a remarkable thing that in the Budget of 1952 the first attack by the Tories on the National Health Insurance Act was on the crippled and the sick. Under the unemployment Acts it is the disabled and the injured who are the first to bear the brunt.

I want to give two examples. Take, first, the case of a man and wife with two sons over 21 years of age, both working. The man receives 30s. a week compensation; he pays 10s. a week rent; and today he enjoys an income of £4 4s. a week—that is £1 10s. compensation and £2 14s. unemployment pay. When he goes to the National Assistance Board he has 24s. deducted from the 59s. which the national scale allows for a man and wife. Why? He is reckoned to have an assumed contribution of 7s. each a week from his two sons—a total of 14s. Then, 10s. of his compensation is taken into account.

The figures work out in this way. He gets £1 15s. from the National Assistance Board and £1 10s. compensation. Although in nine cases out of 10 applicants do not get the maximum rent allowance, I have assumed that he gets the maximum of 10s. That brings him to £3 15s. a week, which means that he has had a reduction of 9s. a week. If this man had been a miner with the supplementation of £1 a week or if he had received a hardship allowance, these figures would have been even more glaring.

Let us take the case of a shipyard worker who has hurt his back. He is a single man in lodgings and is over 21 years of age. He has 35s. a week compensation for injuries. Then he is certified fit for light work with no stooping or heavy lifting. That job exists only here, as M.P.s. There is no such job in the industrial world. He now enjoys £1 15s. a week compensation and £1 12s. 6d. a week unemployment benefit, which gives him £3 7s. 6d. a week. In future 15s. a week of his compensation is taken into consideration and that, in turn, is taken from the 31s. which he is allowed through National Assistance, so that he gets only 16s.

Mr. Peake: The assistance scale today is 35s., not 31s.

Mr. Blyton: I have the Ministry's document here. For a man living alone or a householder, as such directly responsible for rental and household resources, he gets 35s., but if he is in lodgings he does not. In the case I was quoting he gets 16s. from the National Assistance Board and 35s. compensation, making a total of 51s. That man therefore has a reduction of 16s. 6d. in his weekly income. These figures are taken from the Ministry's own booklet. A.L.18, in relation to assistance grants.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) said, it is the most defenceless who are now being treated in this way. The formula is to decide the number of additional days, not the circumstances of the man or the serious disability which he has suffered. This is returning our men to the days when the injured man on compensation had to go to the National Assistance Board for relief because his compensation payment did not allow him to keep himself.
Another important fact in this case should be noted. As hon. Members know, extended benefit has been a national charge. It is now to be paid by the Insurance Fund. It means that the Treasury is eased of the responsibility to the detriment of the Insurance Fund. This is not only an insidious attack on the weakest but has established a new principle of depleting the Insurance Fund to help the Treasury. We have always said that the nation as a whole ought to take responsibility for the long unemployment of our people in this country.


We have always fought for that principle. This new principle, while small in effect today, can mean large commitments on the Insurance Fund in the future.
We all desire peace, but it should be remembered that when it comes it will bring huge demands in America for a reduction in foreign aid, and a recession in the American market can have effects on ours. The Americans can build up their tariff walls against us to keep their own internal market intact. Our exports to America can be excluded, if a recession there should come, to protect their own internal market. Those who think that the boom will go on for ever in America are living in cuckoo-land. If we have large-scale unemployment, the Insurance Fund cannot carry the burden. We have to face that. In the light of this possibility, the Government are putting through this means test in the Regulations, because they anticipate that economic effect coming. I think the Chancellor's speech on Saturday was another indication of that.
If we have large-scale unemployment there are two things that will happen. To maintain the benefits, contributions will have to go up, or, the other side of the House will say, as the Insurance Fund cannot carry the benefits being paid the benefits must be reduced, as in 1931 when right hon. and hon. Gentlemen came back on the landslide. So I place no faith in what is going to happen next year when the review of the Act takes place. The people in power now believe in the means test. As sure as I am here, they will carry these Regulations next year again, when we discuss the future of the Act. It will mean that the able-bodied will be affected. I warn the able-bodied in employment that it may be their turn tomorrow, as it is the turn of the disabled today.
Therefore, I hope that, if the Minister is not to accede to our request tonight, all my hon. and right hon. Friends will go into the Lobby in support of this Motion and show to the country that our objection to the household means test, which we fought for years, still stands as a principle. We ought to vote to show that the means test, which many of us experienced in the days that are gone, is repugnant to us, and that we are disgusted at this sinister way of resurrecting it and

forcing it on people who have felt the brunt, the ex-Service men on pension, the unemployed civilians injured by bombs during the war, the men who were producing the wealth of the nation in industry and who are seriously injured and cannot get a job. They are to have their standards reduced to ease the Treasury of a burden it should rightly carry.

8.24 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Walter Elliot: It has been truly said that this is a battlefield that has been fought over many a time, and I certainly have had long experience of it myself. In past debates in this House I had the task of putting through the legislation which abolished the whole of the local government Poor Law maintenance, which previously was all that the unemployed man had to rely on, under any Government, when he fell out of benefit, and of substituting for it the assistance which was administered at that time by the Assistance Board, which became the National Assistance Board, the administration of which, I think it is agreed on all sides, is a humane and far-sighted piece of Government work.
The difficulty which we are in, of course, was stated by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton). He stated that he crossed swords with his own Minister——

Mr. Blyton: No. I said I crossed swords with the Minister about the means test in the debates in 1946.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Certainly it is true that the decision that this system should prevail, and not be unlimited, was brought up when the Bill was in the Committee stage, and the view that it should be unlimited was rejected by the Labour Government and by a Labour Minister. The quarrel is with the Labour Government of the day and with the Labour Minister of the day, who put in a terminable Clause instead of an indefinite Clause. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), at any rate, takes credit for having opposed that at the time, and having stood out for an indefinite extension of what became Section 62, which was refused by the responsible Minister speaking on behalf of the responsible Government.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I was the responsible Minister, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has got it all wrong, if I may say so with great respect to him. There was no proposal from the other side at that time to extend the five years, and the problem was whether there should be provision for extended benefit and there was a proposal by my hon. Friend to make it continuous under the Act.

Mr. S. Silverman: I think that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) are partly right and partly wrong. There was indeed the attempt to remove the limitation altogether and to make unemployment insurable, but besides that there was subsection (5) of the old Clause 61 which enacted that the old scheme should come to an end at the end of five years. That was never properly debated because it was held in Committee that an Amendment was out of order, so it was never discussed and never voted upon at all.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am perfectly content to be partly right and partly wrong in company with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), whose knowledge of these matters, I frankly admit, is far greater than mine, and to whose practical knowledge I would always defer; but since we have both been corrected by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, not for the first time, I would say that the arguments while the Bill was going on certainly dealt with the question whether there should be an indefinite or a limited period. I would not go further than that. The House at the time decided upon this solution of a Clause which terminated, in virtue of which the debate is taking place tonight.
Of course, it is true that this point has been argued about time and again and fought over great periods of national trouble and distress. I was impressed by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring when he wondered about a possible American recession and possible extension of the outgoings from which the Fund is suffering today. It was exactly that which brought down the insurance scheme in the first instance and made it necessary to introduce a terminal period of benefit, with the subsequent indefinite

maintenance of the insured person from national funds. I fully agree with him that the person unemployed, through no fault of his own, is no longer after a certain period of time the responsibility of industry, but is the responsibility of the nation as a whole. That certainly is the principle which I myself translated into action and which I had the honour to put before the House.

Mr. Blyton: All I was saying is that today the extended benefit is paid by the Treasury, and I want that to go on, and not to put people on to the Insurance Fund so that in two years the Fund will be depleted.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I was discussing the rather wider field—the question whether the person should be carried, after the expiry of his contributions, by the State or by the Fund. I said that he should be carried by the State. That is the position as it will be even after this Motion is, I trust, defeated. At the end of the day, the responsibility for the person suffering a long period of unemployment falls on the Exchequer, and it falls on the Exchequer under the Minister's scheme just as it falls on the Exchequer under the provision of the Act which has just expired.
It is true that under the provision of the Act no examination whatever was held of the financial circumstances of the person who was benefiting. It is true that under National Assistance regard is paid to the circumstances of the person who is to benefit, and that is really what we are arguing about today. Again, the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring spoke somewhat bitterly of the conditions of the additional days which the Minister has brought in, but, after all, these conditions were examined and passed by a committee including, as he said, both sides of industry, and including representatives of the T.U.C. itself.

Mr. Blyton: The T.U.C. was opposed to it.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: We are not discussing whether the T.U.C. was opposed to the continuance of Section 62 but whether the T.U.C. representatives agreed to or advocated the proposals for the additional days, and it is not challenged that they agreed to the proposals for the additional days. We are now asking


whether there should be any additional days at all or whether Section 62 should be continued.

Mr. Anenrin Bevan: If an outside body is consulted in the framing of legislation, whether it be the employers or the T.U.C., it is wrong to say in this House that they have agreed to this or that because, in fact, they have no part in the framing of legislation. What they do is to give advice to the Minister as to what will be the consequences of a certain action. They cannot be pleaded in the House of Commons in aid of a particular piece of legislation.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman and I myself have had discussions on this on the Floor of the House and in Committee upstairs, where he gave very interesting and valuable evidence and where we have frequently discussed whether outside bodies which have been consulted are thereby bound. I am not suggesting for a moment that they are bound. I am discussing the narrow and technical point—and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give his attention to me and to stop his dialogue with his right hon. Friend if he is challenging what I have to say. I should think it very discourteous if I spoke to him and then proceeded to turn away when he was answering, and I would ask him to observe the same conventions.
I was saying that I was only dealing with the very narrow point as to whether the Regulations were so complicated as to be absolutely unintelligible, which was the case made by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring, or whether any improvement could be made in the conditions of these Regulations; and all I was saying was that in the drawing up of these Regulations the persons consulted gave the Minister, as the right hon. Gentleman himself has said, advice as to the consequences of the action which he was taking, and they did not suggest any improvement in the technical conditions of the provision for the additional days. I go no further than that. The technical conditions, although complicated, are as simple as they can be made by people dealing with a complicated and technical problem.
I only wish to leave that discussion out of our argument this afternoon because I

think that we are discussing a much bigger question, and that the more we can dismiss what I regard as a subsection of that argument, the sooner we shall come down to the important point. I repeat that on the question of additional days, the utmost possible care has been given to the promoting of these Regulations.

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman really must not try to buttress his argument, which appears to be extremely thin, by reproaching me. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) were commenting upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's own argument, and we were following it quite clearly, as clearly as is practicable having regard to the way he is presenting it.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am perfectly content that that should be so, although I have heard the right hon. Gentleman comment very bitterly about conversations on the other Front Bench between people who said at the time that they were following his arguments very closely and giving them the utmost attention.
If I may state it shortly and simply, the technical problem of extended days has been considered on technical grounds by a technical committee and the technical committee has framed a scheme which is, as near as possible, workable. It may be complicated, but it is workable, and I do not think that that is denied by anyone in any part of the House. The real question is whether there should be such a scheme at all. Do I carry the right hon. Gentleman with me on that?

Mr. J. Griffiths: Might we get this clear? This is an Advisory Committee upon which there are representatives of both sides of industry. They do not frame any Regulations. Regulations are framed by the Minister. They are submitted to the Committee who are asked for their advice, and they tender their advice. The responsibility for framing Regulations and presenting them to the House is entirely that of the Minister.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I fully agree with that. I have done my best to state it. All I am saying is that this is a complicated matter, in which additional advantage is given to persons with an insurance record which is more continuous than others, that this complicated


business has received a considerable amount of technical attention and that the Minister's Regulations, for which the Minister alone is responsible, and which he alone can recommend to the House, have had the benefit of the utmost technical consideration that could be given to them.
I do not think that is pressing the matter too far, and I do not think it is an argument which it is unfair to adduce to the House, because I merely wish to remove this from the ambit of our discussion. The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring quoted Regulations and leaflets. I admit that they are complicated, but all I say is that, in a complicated subject, the Minister has framed Regulations embodying the best conclusions which he could reach after taking technical advice.
The principle is another thing. It is the principle of whether there should be an insurance system with a limited period, or whether there should be a payment with an unlimited period. That is the main question that we are discussing this evening. The gravamen of the charge has been that the principle of an unlimited payment which was enshrined in the Section is being brought to an end under the provisions of the Act itself. That is the complaint which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have made this evening. I only say that this goes back a very long way. It was the danger of unlimited payments under the Insurance Fund which brought the old insurance scheme first into disrepute and then into bankruptcy, and it had to be altered. I believe that if an unlimited drain on the Insurance Fund were again established, it would bring about the same result. A further argument has been advanced——

Mr. A. C. Manuel: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman keeps repeating "an unlimited drain." Surely he is aware of the meetings of the tribunal. They have to come to a finding before there can be a further extension. Cannot the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bring it into that perspective. I am sure there are safeguards under the present provisions.

Mr. David Jones: It is a State responsibility.

Mr. Manuel: The present form is more acceptable to my hon. Friends and me than another form.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Certainly, that is perfectly true, but I do not think the hon. Member listened very closely to the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring who envisaged a different position arising. I put this to the House without any hesitation. If the conditions which are imposed ought to be relaxed and if the means test is being applied partially and unjustly, then it is the means test which is at fault—the provision of assistance for the carrying of the individual by the State. That is a position which I ask the House to agree to, and I do not think that can be denied by anyone.
Both the examples given by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring were examples of the worsening position of individuals because their incomes were reduced by almost exactly the equivalent of their compensation payments taken into account. The shipyard worker was receiving in compensation a certain sum. Of that sum 15s. had to be taken into account, and he was going to receive a weekly reduction of 16s. 6d., or practically an equivalent amount of the compensation money not disregarded. The other case he gave concerned a man and his wife. He said that 10s. of that man's compensation would be taken into account, and there would be a reduction in his income of 9s. per week.
It may well be that the disregards ought to be more leniently administered, or that some at least should not be taken into account. I know this matter well. I framed the original scheme of disregards which brought into operation a whole list of payments which were not allowed before that time. Up till then the working population was concerned to a large extent with the Poor Law, and they were under very much more stringent conditions than after the passing of the Bill which allowed for these disregards to be considered. I know that these disregards have been considerably developed since then.
If the means test is harsh, it is harsh on all the people concerned, and not only on one section. The question of revising it is not one for the quinquennial review of this particular Act. I cannot see that that would be of any advantage in the


position we are discussing. Nor can I see it would bring a great deal of advantage to that section of the community whom two hon. Members mentioned, namely, those who are suffering from sickness and those who are suffering from injury which make it practically impossible for them to obtain employment. I think the House will agree that in these circumstances the worst service that could be done to the person in question is simply to pay out a succession of moneys without doing one's best to carry out rehabilitation treatment and to make sure that the person is capable eventually of taking a place in the employable forces of the country.
We listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southwark (Mr. Isaacs) in the debate recently on the fusing of the Ministry of Pensions into the Ministry of National Insurance. He gave examples of the remarkable feats of rehabilitation which had been carried out, through taking a case not merely as someone for which money should be paid out, but as a human being upon whom, as he said himself, miracles could be worked. I am sure that the indefinite prolongation of those payments is the least advantageous thing that can be done for the person who has suffered from one of these injuries. It may well be that sufficient attention is not being given to that suggestion, but that is a case for giving more attention to these problems and not a case for merely prolonging indefinitely Section 62 of the old Act.
Time and again this whole question has been discussed. All responsible administrators have always decided that the insurance payments must be contributory, and that it was only by contributory insurance payments that we could maintain the principle of drawing insurance money as a right; that no insurance scheme could eventually carry all the risks——

Mr. Ness Edwards: rose——

Mr. S. Silverman: No, do not interrupt.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am sorry if I am delaying the speech of the hon. Gentleman, but perhaps he will have an opportunity——

Mr. William Keenan: Cannot the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make a speech without the assistance of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman)?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am doing my best to speak without his assistance. I have never asked for the assistance of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne and I am sure that he would be the last to suggest that he gave it to anybody, especially on this side of the House.

Mr. Silverman: On the contrary, I try to help all.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Then I regret that his efforts have been singularly unsuccessful.
Our difficulty today is this: Should payments to the person who is a long-continued casualty of industry be continued without any revision of the position in which he finds himself, or should they not? I think they are bound to be reviewed and revised. The burden of the insurance scheme on industry is not one which can be treated in the way in which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite sometimes suggest it should be treated. We have seen these great schemes placed in jeopardy before, and actually founder, through the lack of exactly the kind of treatment which right hon. Gentlemen when in office considered necessary in making this Section terminable and not continuous.
It is their then decision which is being challenged tonight. They have the responsibility of putting it on the Statute Book, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale—all these right hon. Gentlemen were members of the Government that put a terminable Clause into this Bill. On them falls the responsibility, and it is for them to show cause why it should not be terminated.
I suggest that they have not done that this evening, that the Motion which they have brought forward does nothing to deal with the situation. Therefore, on the ground that they put this law on the Statute Book, that they have brought forward no grounds for reversing the decision they then took, I ask the House not to pass this Motion this evening.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I hope it will not be thought to be a lack of modesty if I agree with those hon. and right hon. Members on both sides who have reminded the House that at least I was consistent in 1946 and remain consistent now. I would only add that, whether my right hon. Friends were right or wrong in 1943, I am sure they are right tonight, and I hope that we shall all vote unitedly in support of this Motion.
There are two matters involved here, and some of the speeches have confused the two things. The first question is whether, in a proper social insurance scheme, unemployment benefit shall continue to be paid as long as a man is genuinely unemployed without limit of time, or whether the right principle is to pay that benefit only for some limited period of time laid down in the statute.
That was what we fought about in 1946. On that occasion I was in the minority. Whether I am in the minority now, I do not know, because that question is not now being discussed. I say in passing, however, that I believe now, as I believed then, that no system of social insurance can be called comprehensive which does not set out to grant the insurance benefit as long as the risk is there.
I do not think it would matter on the principle, but on the facts it is a little unfair to say that the Insurance Fund cannot carry it without collapsing, without becoming insolvent and without producing all the miseries of the middle 1930's, because in sober fact the funds on which the 1946 social insurance Act was carried were the accumulated surplus funds in the Unemployment Insurance Fund in 1945.
As it happened, six years of war had cured our unemployment problem. Instead of there being a deficit in the Fund, there was a vast surplus. I do not now remember the figure, but it was an enormous sum of many millions of pounds. What we did in 1946 was to take those unemployment insurance unused surpluses, the unrepaid contributions of millions of workers over many years, and use them for the payment of other social insurance benefits, while unemployment benefit was taken out of the Fund and cast as a burden upon the Exchequer.
I thought that was wrong. I still think it is wrong. I hope that if my right hon. Friends ever get the opportunity, they will correct that error. But if the error was made, if a term is, in fact, put to the payment of unemployment benefit, no matter how genuine and unavoidable the unemployment, there must be some sort of safeguard against the worst industrialist. That was Section 62.
The Government of that day would not accept the principle—it is no use arguing it at any length now—and neither would the party who are now the present Government when they were in Opposition. They would not accept the principle of continuing unemployment pay as long as the unemployment continued. What the Government did was to say that they would take some safeguard to see that, at any rate, where a genuine case could be made out, there should not be a complete cessation of benefit.
The Opposition of that day—the Government of today—opposed that. They did not want that safeguard either. Not merely did they agree with the Government of that time in opposing the principle of benefit that was unlimited in time, but they voted against the protective Measure, the safety Clause. The safety Clause contained subsection (5), and subsection (5) provided the safety Clause only for five years.
The trouble today is that the five years have come to an end, and by our own legislation the safety Clause is coming to an end with it. What my right hon. Friends are now saying to the Government is that they ought not, as things have turned out, to dispense with that safety Clause; and that instead of throwing the thing over to the National Assistance Board, with the means test, they should keep in being the tribunal machinery set up by Section 62 of the Act. That is what we are voting about tonight. It is a perfectly simple point. What were their reasons? The reason has been given from the Front Bench opposite.
It was said that the Labour Government said, "We are not contemplating that there will ever again be mass unemployment—long continued terms of unemployment. Therefore we do not need to bother about unemployment benefit being paid so long as there is unemployment, but there may be a period—before things get back properly


into their groove—of post-war dislocation, which we will put at five years, during which men may be unemployed beyond the statutory benefit period." Of course, it did not happen. Matters were such that there was no dislocation during the first five years after the war. The dislocation is coming now. It is now that it is beginning to be a real problem. But at the moment when the dislocation occurs and it begins to be a real problem which we all hoped would never be with us again, the statutory safeguard expires.
Some of us made an attempt in 1946 to urge the Government of the day not to limit it to five years but to take out subsection (5). I put down a Motion in those days, that it should be an instruction to the Committee that they should have power to delete subsection (5). I was assured by the Minister that there was ample power and my Motion was never called. It was never called on the grounds that the Committee had power to deal with it. But when in Committee we came to my Amendment to leave out subsection (5), the Chairman of the Committee—I am not quarrelling with his Ruling, which was probably right, but which was inconsistent with what we had been told before—ruled that the Amendment was out of order. So we never had the opportunity in Committee of testing what the feeling of the Committee was as to this limitation of the safety device to a statutory maximum period of five years.
We all know now that if we are not to have the complete principle—for which I would contend—we need the safety Clause now more than we needed it then. It is no use the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) saying that it is a question of the means test as a whole and not only the means test on unemployed people. That is not the point. The point is whether any means test at all ought to be applied in cases which are certified by the tribunal set up by Section 62 as being cases where unemployment benefit should continue as of right for such a period as the tribunal determines. That was the machinery we had then; that is the machinery we want now. The operation of the means test, whether it is good, bad or indifferent, has nothing whatever to do with that question.
I do hope my right hon. Friends will stand by what they said today. If the Government do not agree to reconsider the matter and introduce a Bill—which could be done quite simply—to extend this provision, or for some similar machinery, the principle of subsection (5) of Section 62 ought to continue. If the Government are not prepared to do that, we ought to vote for the Motion.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: There is more than a little flavour of humbug attaching to the Motion which the House has been discussing. The Opposition have put down a Motion asking Her Majesty's Government to introduce legislation amending an Act they themselves passed in 1946. The expiry of Section 62 was an eventuality not only provided for in that Act but continuously foreseen at every moment from 1946 until the present time. But it was only on 2nd July, at a loss for some other subject with which to fill up the second half of a Supply day, that this Motion was put down by the Opposition. [An HON. MEMBER: "Shocking."] If the Opposition had been serious about this matter, if they had really thought that the Act ought to be amended, that legislation for this purpose ought to be introduced in this Session, why did they wait until 2nd July, two days before the Section expired, before they came forward in public with any such request?
We start our Sessions with a long debate upon the Queen's Speech, and the Opposition put down an Amendment which "humbly regrets that the Gracious Speech does not include" this or that. Why did the Opposition not put down an Amendment in such terms as "but humbly regret that there is no proposal in the Gracious Speech for the amendment of the National Insurance Act, 1946, so as to retain Section 62 in force"? The whole time from 1946 until 2nd July, 1953, has passed, and we have not had a squeak from the Opposition about what we are now told is a glaring injustice to the unemployed which the Government are seeking to perpetrate. This Motion is nothing more than a device for passing an hour or two.
I do not think that the Motion is very sensibly drawn, particularly in its reference to the quinquennial review. That


review was provided for in the original Act in Section 40, so that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) himself could not have thought that there could be any connection between the quinquennial review and the expiry of Section 62. In case there might be any possible doubt about the matter, he restricted the scope of the quinquennial review to matters which would exclude consideration of the working of Section 62. The matters to which the quinquennial review is restricted are the "rates and amounts of benefits." How he thinks that can have any possible relationship to the working of the qualifications for benefit dealt with under Section 62 he will perhaps explain when he speaks.
On several occasions during the debate on the 1946 Act explanations were given of the necessity for a temporary provision for extended benefit—not of the necessity for extended benefit as such, but of the necessity for making it temporary. The ground for that which appeared to hold the field was that in the first few years there might be abnormal conditions and unemployment during those years might be at a higher level than that at which it would eventually settle down or than was contemplated actuarily in the framing of the 1946 Act.
Therefore, the Government of the day said, "We will put in a temporary provision in order to cover the hazards of those years"; but by implication they also said, "When employment has settled down after the war, when we have arrived at levels approximately at or below those actuarily contemplated, there will be no need for extended benefit, and we can maintain a sharp separation between benefits as a right earned by contributions under the Insurance Act and running for a definite time, and, on the other hand, assistance payments without contribution conditions."
That was the clear implication given at that time. It was the principle enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman, when he stated:
The Government have given serious consideration to this unemployment benefit and its relationship to the Fund. They have come to the view that only short-term unemployment ought to be borne by the Insurance Fund. We believe that the responsibility for long-term unemployment should be undertaken by the State as a direct responsibility."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418. c. 1744.]

But because in the initial post-war period it was expected that the numbers of unemployed falling to be dealt with by the State would be exceptionally high, a temporary arrangement was written into the Act for dealing with that not by the Assistance Board but under Section 62. It should not pass without notice that there was in fact a very sound and convenient reason for the selection of a five-year period. By the Regulations under the previous Unemployment Insurance Acts, and by the transitional Regulations made by the right hon. Gentleman in 1948, a five-year qualifying period, a five-year industrial record is required to entitle a man to his additional days. It was therefore reasonable and fair that, in introducing the new scheme, the temporary provision for extended benefit should be made to ran until those who began to be insured under the new scheme could have fulfilled the five-year condition. That is an additional and logical reason for the temporary provision.
But when the original grounds have been falsified by experience and when the five years have expired, when we know that in future new and generous conditions for additional days will be provided under the Regulations which my right hon. Friend has laid, the House is back again facing the matter of principle. Are we to draw a clear distinction between insurance benefits payable as of right, in virtue of contributions, and payments from the National Assistance Board to meet need in cases where there is no such qualification? Or are we going to merge and confuse the two?
There is no doubt that the whole force of thought and legislation from both sides of the House on this subject, at any rate since the war, has been strongly in favour of the establishment and maintenance of the insurance principle. Any alteration, any change, which blurs and weakens that principle, must be rejected and resisted. We are told that as a result of that distinction being maintained, unemployed persons whose contributions have run out will be referred to the National Assistance Board, and will have to fulfil the conditions for obtaining assistance laid down by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, and since continued by Her Majesty's present Government.
That does not only apply to persons unemployed whose contributions conditions have run out. It applies to persons


who, through no fault of their own, have not been able to establish the initial contribution conditions for insurance or who, for any reason whatever, are outside the mesh of the Insurance Fund and fall to be caught by the net of National Assistance. Why select one category of those who fall outside the scope of the scheme and say that these must be treated in a special class? There is hardly a fraction of one per cent. of those referred to the National Assistance Board whose situation can be attributed to any fault of their own; but so long as we run a National Insurance scheme we must treat it as an insurance scheme, and those who fall outside its scope have to be dealt with under National Assistance. I do not believe that those who argue in favour of the blurring of this principle, the confusion of the two sources of aid and security are doing a service.
Undoubtedly there are some who will fall victim to the termination of Section 62 and the establishment, at least after a longer or shorter period, of the full insurance principle in this field. I have taken what steps I can to estimate the degree of that effect in my own area. I find that practically none of those at present under extended benefit will fail to qualify for a number of additional days. Less than 50 per cent. of those on extended benefit are disabled, and of those disabled persons again, less than half are in receipt of any payment in respect of their disability. Thus less than one quarter of those on extended benefit in my area can suffer any diminution of income as a result of reference to the National Assistance Board. But my right hon. Friend has made a number of statements tonight which go further to assist the position of those persons, notably in what he said about qualification for sickness benefit as permanently unemployable and in his illustration of the modified effect of the offset of disability payments in assessment of means for National Assistance.
I share myself the sympathy which must be felt for that extremely small number who will suffer some not unappreciable loss of income in the next 12 months or so as a result of Section 62 expiring, as was provided by the last Government. But I do not hesitate to say that that is a necessary consequence of establishing, as the country unanimously did in 1946,

the principle of insurance, and that any effort to tamper with that principle would certainly bring in its train far greater, immensely greater, hardship than any which may be involved in the expiry of Section 62.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I want to keep strictly to my bargain with the Parliamentary Secretary. Therefore, I shall have to concentrate the remarks I have to make upon what is the real issue, which we must not allow to be obscured when the House comes to make a decision. First, a few words about the history of the matter.
When I was Minister the Government and I had to make some important decisions. The first was whether we should accept the recommendations of the Beveridge Report that unemployment benefit should be made continuous without limit and borne upon the Insurance Fund. We decided against that, for reasons which I do not want to elaborate, but they were reasons conditioned very largely because, when we approached the problem in 1945 immediately after the war, we had the memories of the inter-war years still very strong in our minds. We had the memory that the attempt to bear the burden of continuous mass unemployment had broken the Insurance Fund. Therefore, we decided to limit—if I may use the old phrase, because it is simpler—standard benefit.
A further problem was what was to happen to the men who were unemployed beyond the period covered by extended benefit. We laid down one principle, which was that they must be entitled to unemployment benefit, although they had exhausted their standard benefit, without being subject to the indignities of the means test—to what we called in Section 62 an inquiry into their financial position. We decided to introduce Section 62, and we referred to the fact that we were approaching a period in which there would be dislocation and problems of unemployment, we feared, on a scale which, happily, was not realised.
Section 62 provided that when a person exhausted the standard benefit he would apply for the benefit to be extended, at the same rate, to a tribunal composed of an independent chairman and two local representatives drawn from industry, one


from an employers' panel and one from a trade union panel. The tribunal would listen to the plea, would interview the man, would hear the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of National Insurance and recommend to the Minister that extended benefit be continued for a period, generally speaking, of six months. The man could apply again and his benefit could be extended again. That is the position, and Section 62, therefore, has worked for five years.

The question which the Minister had to decide was whether, in the circumstances, there was a case for continuing Section 62 or not. I believe there is, and I think the reason is very simple, and I am not going to argue it. The overwhelming reason is that there are 48,000 people receiving benefits. What more do we want? There are 48,000 people who, were it not for Section 62, would not be receiving unemployment benefit at the present moment. That is not denied. They are unemployed, and the Ministry of Labour has not found jobs for them. They have appeared before tribunals which have been satisfied that they ought to get unemployment benefit, and which recommended accordingly. That is why they get it, and that is the simple issue. I ask the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) to remember that that is the issue we have to face.

Mr. Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman also give the number of persons who are referred to the National Assistance Board because they have not fulfilled the contributions under the National Insurance Act for other reasons? Is the right hon. Gentleman going to ask that they should receive payment under other arrangements?

Mr. Griffiths: I want to stick to the issue we have to decide tonight. That issue is whether the Government should or should not continue Section 62. What happens outside that is another matter that we can discuss on other days, but, in the limited time available now, let us stick to that simple issue. The hon. Member made a point about the fact that we are debating this matter today, but he could make a complaint as to why we did not discuss it last week or the week before. Let me tell him what happened. I hope it will not be denied. The Trades Union Congress made representations to

the Minister. Does the Minister care to deny that again?

Mr. Peake: My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with that point when he comes to reply.

Mr. Griffiths: The Trades Union Congress, having regard to the experience of the past five years and also to the fact that there were still 48,000 people in receipt of extended benefit—as well as to the fact that next year the quinquennial review takes place, which will give the Government and the House the opportunity of reviewing the whole of the working of National Insurance—therefore made representations—let me quote—
… urging the Minister that extended benefit should be continued for a further period, so that the whole question of the duration of the benefit could be examined in the light of the 1954 review.
When we come to that review next year, we can examine the whole working of the Act with the benefit of five years' experience. There is to be a review, and the Minister must present a basis and give his ideas about the future scheme to the House.
The T.U.C. put forward what I thought was a sensible proposition, which was that, until that time, Section 62 should be continued. The Minister rejected that, and, consequently my hon. Friends who are members of the National Union of Mineworkers as well as Members of Parliament went to see the Parliamentary Secretary some few weeks ago, urging him to do the same thing. I therefore want to make it perfectly clear that, before raising the matter here, both the industrial and the political side had made representations to the Government through the Minister that Section 62 should be continued. Those suggestions were rejected.
Now I come to the reason why. But, first of all, let us get quite clear something on which we are all agreed—that Section 62 has worked admirably. There have been no complaints about it. I do not recall a single Question in the House about it. I appeal to the Minister, to the Parliamentary Secretary and to others on both sides of the House who were in this House in the 1930's to recall the Questions about unemployment problems which were addressed on Thursdays to


the then Minister of Labour, the Adjournment debates, the Resolutions and the all-night Sittings that took place on this matter. There was continuous conflict about unemployment. Not a week went past without Questions being asked on the subject, and not a month went past without a debate about it.
Five years ago I had the privilege, and, indeed, the pleasure, of introducing the Bill which in due course became the 1948 Act. I spent a good deal of time and thought and took the best advice available to me upon it. I drew on all the experience I had of this problem which, I may say, was not inconsiderable. For five years Section 62 has been a success, and no one can deny it. All that the Minister can say today is that a few bank clerks who were sacked at 60 received extended benefit. Because there are a few bank clerks who are sacked at 60 and a few engine men who have retired at 60 and are therefore still capable of work is no argument against Section 62. The tribunal was appointed by the Minister and an employers' representative and a trade union representative were members of it.
The right hon. Gentleman has been the Minister for 20 months, and during that time he has never said a word about any abuse of Section 62. There has been no abuse. It has worked admirably. Not all the people who have applied for extended benefit have been granted it. The Minister said that 14 per cent. of those who applied have been denied it. It is clear, therefore, that the tribunals are doing their duty seriously and are properly examining whether the person who applies for extended benefit is one to whom in all the circumstances, taking into account his own industrial effort and the circumstances of the area in which he lives, should properly be given the benefit and whether there is justification for recommending the Minister to continue unemployment benefit at the standard rate and under standard conditions for a further six months.
Forty-eight thousand people are receiving the benefit at a cost of £2 million per annum. The cost of extended benefit is met by the Exchequer, and, I think, quite rightly so. I reserve for myself and for my party the right to argue this matter when we have a complete review

of the whole subject, but, quite frankly, remembering the experience of the past, I am still convinced that long-term benefit ought to be borne by the State.
I believe that in Section 62 we found the way to provide the unemployment benefit borne by the Exchequer under conditions that have provided for the whole country a period of contentment and peace in this field that stands out in contrast to the bitterness of the inter-war years. Let me ask this question of hon. Members opposite before they vote: do they want to go back to 1936? Does any one of us? Does the Minister? But that is where we are going.
I have letters here from my own constituency, and perhaps I may for a moment speak of my constituency because I know it best. In my constituency we face two very great problems. One we share in common with many other areas—the problem of the man who is fit for some work but is disabled by pneumoconiosis. Let me tell the House where this drives him. It drives him either to take a job which is beyond his capacity and to hasten his death or to go to the doctor so that the doctor will do what I am sure will be perfectly honest—declare him to be unemployable.
I do not want to do that. I do not want to face the man with this choice of either taking a job back in the pits, or on the pit surface, or of becoming unemployable. In the case which I have in mind, his extended benefit is 89 days—14 weeks. He will cease to get extended benefit in the middle of November. The alternative to his going back to work is to declare him unemployable at 50 years of age, with 15 years to go before he reaches the retirement age which is laid down, to write himself off at the age of 50.
This is the problem we tried to meet. We built Remploy factories in the effort to do it. We did not find the solution. I do not criticise hon. Members opposite for this; we did not solve it, either. It is a very difficult problem. We were seeking to find a way by which work could be found for these men instead of saying to a man at 50 years of age that there was nothing for him except to wait to die. We did not succeed entirely because it is a difficult job. But we must go on trying to find a way.
In the meantime, why deny them this? I do not mind the right hon. Gentleman quoting what I did in 1945 and 1946, but he must not use it as an alibi. We are deciding now, in the circumstances of today, and in the circumstances of today we have this provision dealing with these 48,000 men, nearly half of them in the Development Areas and a large proportion of them disabled men. They get their disability pension; they get their workmen's compensation; they get their other benefit; and they are available for work. They cannot find work. Having given themselves to the nation, it is not their job to provide work but ours; it is our responsibility. As long as we fail to meet it then I say, frankly, that we ought to continue this provision which has worked so well. That is what we are asking and that is what the Motion is about.
I do not want this House, under any Government, to go back to 1936 and to have those debates again. If the Government will promise between now and the end of this Session, a month's time, to reconsider this matter, I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends not to press it to a Division tonight. It could be done by a short Bill passed through the House in one day. Whatever the arguments, would any of us here vote against the Government if they brought in a Bill to extend Section 62 until they could bring it up to date? Would any of us on either side of the House? We say to the Minister, "Bring in your Bill next week. We will give you all the stages in one day." All he needs to do is to draft a short Bill to the effect that Section 62 shall be continued for a further period and to bring it in next week. We will pass it in one day. I speak for all my hon. and right hon. Friends. The alternative, if we do not get such an assurance from the Government, is that we must vote.
It may be, let me confess—I am not afraid of confessing—that I made a mistake about the five years, in that I did not make the five years co-terminous with the quinquennial review. I am not afraid of confessing that. My father told me that the only man who does not make a mistake is the man who makes nothing. But why should the Government use my mistake, if mistake it was, and continue it now? This provision has worked well. There has been no abuse. It has worked smoothly.
Surely this is not an economy. Let me put it to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that if he votes against this Motion he will put a burden on the Fund now carried by the State. He himself would be reversing what he says he wants. Surely, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not, is he, urging this Measure upon the Minister because of the money involved? Surely not. What is it? The extended unemployment benefit is now costing £2 million. The saving will not be £2 million because people who get extended unemployment benefit now under this provision of Section 62 will get a part of it in assistance. If the saving were half it would be £1 million, and for £1 million saving what do we do? We revive the old memories; we revive the old fears.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and I had the privilege of piloting the National Assistance Act together through the House, and we did our best to remove as many of the taints as we could from the National Assistance scheme. There was one thing we were unable to do, and I confess that I am not entirely sorry we did not succeed. We did not succeed in removing from men's minds the doubt whether they could ask for Assistance and keep their dignity. Do we want them to lose that? Do we really want that? Do we really want men and women to ask for Assistance without hesitating? I do not think we do. We should lose something vital in this nation. What is the hon. Member laughing at?

Mr. E. Partridge: Over and over again we are asked to produce leaflets so that it may become known—what they ought to know. There is nothing wrong in that.

Mr. Griffiths: No, and there is nothing wrong either in old people saying they do not like to go for assistance.

Mr. Partridge: Quite so.

Mr. Griffiths: That is what I was saying. What I am saying is that now we are to send men to assistance. I ask the Government again to consider. This is the simple issue. I ask the Government to consider the Motion, and if they promise to consider it now I shall withdraw it now. If they do not, we must vote for it. We are saying that Section


62 should be continued until such time as after the quinquennial review we have an opportunity of reviewing the National Assistance scheme and of then deciding this problem and the duration of benefit. The T.U.C. asked the Minister to do that several months ago; the miners' group asked him some weeks ago. We have been refused. If we are refused again we shall have no alternative but to go into the Lobby and vote for our Motion.

9.35 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. R. H. Turton): I am sorry that there has not been sufficient time this evening for all hon. Members who have wanted to get into the debate to do so, but I think that they will excuse my getting up now, because I have a number of points to reply to.
My only criticism of the speeches from the Opposition side of the House and of the action which they have taken tonight is that, in my view and that of my right hon. Friend, there has been very great delay on this matter. On 9th February we announced, in reply to a Question put by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. West), the decision of the Government on this matter. We stated the fact that Section 62 ran out on Saturday last, 4th July, and that we intended to bring in Regulations under Section 12 (1) to deal with that problem. There was no Motion put on the Order Paper on this matter until late at night on Thursday last, when it was quite clear from the Parliamentary business that the Motion could not be debated until after Section 62 had run out.
If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen had felt so strongly about this matter, why did not they raise it during the intervening five months? We laid on the Table on 21st May the Regulations to deal with the added days. Ever since then there has been an opportunity under Parliamentary procedure to debate these Regulations by Prayer in the House of Commons, and no action was taken to discuss this matter until after Section 62 had lapsed.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) said that there had been discussions between certain

hon. Members who represent mining constituencies and myself on this matter. That is perfectly true. On 17th June—and I have the report in front of me of what took place—I met some of his hon. Friends who said that they were concerned about the lapsing of Section 62, and they wanted to know what provision was being made. I explained to them at that time the facts of the situation, and I pointed out to them—and I see that there is a representative here—how important it was that they should not neglect to take the opportunity of praying against the Regulations that had been laid on the Table. I remember telling them that the last day for praying was a date later in this month. I cannot but accuse the hon. Gentlemen of delay in this matter.
I regret very much that the right hon. Gentleman brought in this question about certain representations which, he said, had been made by the Trades Union Congress to the Minister. I think that was a great pity. My right hon. Friend has never claimed that legislation which he introduced had the backing or the opposition of representative bodies. That would be quite the wrong thing to do. The right hon. Gentleman knows from experience that there have always to be discussions going on at all levels between members of the Trades Union Congress and officers of the Ministry of National Insurance. What the House of Commons is interested in is whether there has been a formal approach to the Minister or to the Parliamentary Secretary by representative bodies in this country of whatever character they may be, and to press the Minister to disclose informal conversations with officials is, I believe, absolutely wrong and a precedent which would be extremely dangerous if carried out.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am not asking the Minister to disclose information which ought not to be disclosed. I am asking the simple question: Did or did not the General Council of the Trades Union Congress press for Section 62 to be continued?

Mr. Turton: I repeat the answer that my right hon. Friend has already given, and I will add to it that neither my right hon. Friend nor I has had any formal approach from the Trades Union Congress on this matter.

Mr. Griffiths: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by "formal"?

Mr. Houghton: Might I ask the hon. Gentleman to make it clear to the House that, at the request of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, representatives of that body saw the Permanent Secretary and other officials on 29th January, 1953, for the purpose of representing the decision of the General Council that Section 62 ought to be extended pending the quinquennial review?

Mr. Turton: I have already said that there have been no formal representations. [An HON. MEMBER: "Dodger."] An hon. Member calls me a dodger. I started off by explaining to the House that I hoped the Opposition would not so far forget themselves as to ask for particulars of informal discussions between officers of my Ministry and representative bodies to be disclosed to this Chamber. I will do it if it is requested, but it is a very ugly precedent to set. There have not been any formal representations. If hon. Members press for it, I will give them the position. On a certain date there were discussions—they were quite informal—between officers of the Ministry and representatives of the Trades Union Congress on that matter.
There was no request that the Minister should receive a deputation; there was no official formal representation at all on this matter. It is no good hon. Members opposite trying to get away from that. If the Trades Union Congress had wanted to do so, they could have come and made formal recommendations to the Minister, as they have done frequently in the past, but they did not do that in this case.
That really seems to me to be a side issue. If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have to excuse their delay by the fact that they thought some other representative body was going to press the case and ask for the introduction of legislation, they must indeed be on very weak ground. Having listened to the debate, I cannot think that their ground is very strong. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly remembers the debate which took place on 23rd May when his party were very acutely split on the problem of standard benefit, added days and the temporary provision under Section 62. The right hon. Gentleman

the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) said in that debate:
… I think it is impossible, being an insurance scheme, that it should march upon the basis that there can be unlimited or unqualified benefit in respect of unemployment. … I say, frankly, that whether the Government are right or wrong, they will not seek to justify on the Floor of the House, unconditional, unlimited benefit out of the public funds in any circumstances.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
There may be noise, but the Government will not do it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1946; Vol. 423, c. 661 and 664.]
He added that the argument for unconditional benefit was one which the Government could not support.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: Will the hon. Gentleman explain the context of that statement? Was not that statement made in relation to the set-up of Section 62 of the Act in which there is provision for an investigation to be made by the tribunal?

Mr. Turton: That debate took place on the Motion that Clause 12 stand part of the Bill. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is the only Member on the other side who spoke who has been consistent in the argument he advanced, that the system to be attacked was that of standard benefit plus the added days and then full and complete assistance. That was challenged by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly. I will not quote his words now because they have already been quoted and they will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I do not want to take up too much time on that point, but it was put quite clearly by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South that unconditional or unqualified benefit not out of the Insurance Fund but out of public money was what they were opposed to. We are having to operate that scheme now, because the framework in that 1946 Act was for the 180 days, then the period of added days and after that National Assistance.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No.

Mr. Turton: I listened with quietness to the right hon. Gentleman. I could have interrupted him and I could have challenged some of his remarks. I fore-bore doing that because I knew his time


was limited, just as mine is. I hope he and some of his hon. Friends will follow that example. I am stating the facts after having read the debate. Those who disagree with me should read that debate. The hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) took part in that debate and I remember her describing that particular Clause as follows:
As a Member who was not in Standing Committee, I have carefully read the wording of Clause 12. I ask hon. Members of my party … to read Clause 12. Have they read it? Have they made a considered judgment on it? I have read it, and on the wording, it is either meaningless or mischievous."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1946; Vol. 423, c. 638.]
That sentence drew her into the Lobby against the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly and most of the then Socialist Government.
That was what they were fighting for at that time, and a great deal of emotion has been worked out of this debate by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly on the same lines as that roused by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne in May, 1946. I gather that the argument now adduced is that there should be unconditional and unqualified benefit through Section 62. In other words, the standard benefit and the added days having been exhausted, an applicant comes before the tribunal to draw extended benefit for all time. If that had been the object and the intention of the Socialist Government in 1946, why was there this dispute with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne and his friends? They would have been quite happy if they had known that for all time under Section 62 extended benefit would have been got from a tribunal.

Mr. S. Silverman: Not for all time.

Mr. Turton: If there had not been subsection (5) of Section 62 there would have been no disagreement with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne. That was what he and the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock were arguing for in May, 1946, but that is what the Opposition Front Bench decided not to do.
Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly what he

was trying to do by Section 62. These are the general directions for chairmen and members of local tribunals:
The primary object of extended benefit is to make provision for those persons who, owing to the dislocation of industry following the war are temporarily unable to find employment pending the development of plans under the full employment policy and who have exhausted their rights to ordinary benefit. The life of the provision is accordingly limited by Section 62 (5) to five years from the appointed day. …
That is the true purpose of Section 62. Is there a right hon. Gentleman or hon. Gentleman or hon. Lady in the House who can claim today that the provisions of Section 62, which ended last Saturday, were operating to provide for those who were out of work through dislocation caused by the war? They were operating to deal with many cases of real hardship which I do not deny, but they were also operating to deal with many classes of unemployed persons whom the right hon. Gentleman did not contemplate would be covered by Section 62 when he introduced it.
In his speech the right hon. Gentleman challenged me to deal with the point whether all the 48,000 should not get extended benefit. He asked if there had been any question in the House as to the undesirability of some of those drawing unemployment benefit. The answer is, yes, there have been a number of complaints by hon. Gentlemen on this matter. May I quote to him a speech made by his colleague the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Daines) in 1952? The hon. Gentleman said:
I wish to call the Minister's attention to one of the consequences of the 1946 Act that we did not foresee at that time. My attention has been called to not a few cases where, for example, higher civil servants and retired Army officers, some of them high executive officers with substantial salaries, are compulsorily retired before pension age and go to sign on at local employment exchanges for the purpose of getting unemployment benefit on the one hand and of getting franked cards on the other.
He finished by saying:
I am calling attention to something that I think approximates to a public scandal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C. 13th May, 1952; c. 41–43.]
That was in the Committee stage of the Family Allowances and National Insurance Bill. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) took part in that debate and my right hon. Friend, in replying,


promised to look into the scandal to which his attention had been drawn by the hon. Member for East Ham, North.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Have there been inquiries and what was the result of them?

Mr. Turton: We have inquired, and amongst the persons of whom we inquired there were a number on superannuation and also a considerable number of married women.

Mr. Griffiths: How many?

Mr. Turton: The right hon. Gentleman always appears to be completely innocent about departmental machinery——

Mr. Griffiths: rose——

Mr. Turton: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will let me reply to his inquiry? As he probably knows, there is a pilot inquiry and it would be improper to give numbers based on that. All I can tell him is that there was an official inquiry into this matter and it was found that there were a considerable number in that sample inquiry who were superannuated persons. There were also a certain number who were married women who were really outside the employment field. There were also a certain number who were vagrants or who were living in common lodging houses. I am making no attack, but am merely saying that I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced Section 62, was expecting that the people who would benefit would be those classes that I have enumerated.

Mr. Griffiths: Was a single one of those persons given extended benefit without the recommendation of a tribunal?

Mr. Turton: Every case has received the recommendation of a local tribunal.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there were only 14 per cent. of cases in which the tribunal had refused the application. An important point in this connection is that there is a great variation from tribunal to tribunal. In certain cases the percentage is higher than 14, and in some cases it is much lower. I remember my right hon. Friend pointing out to the right hon. Gentleman, when he was introducing what is now Section 62, that there would be that tendency to

variation from tribunal to tribunal and from district to district.

Mr. Griffiths: There is nothing wrong about that.

Mr. Turton: What we have done in this matter is what I ask the House to do: that is, face up to the real issue in this situation of whether a contributory insurance scheme is to provide for unemployment of unlimited duration. Whether or not they have forgotten it, the right hon. Gentlemen who now occupy the Opposition Front Bench came to a decision on that in 1946, in the words of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South, which I have quoted.
We have examined the position and have come to the conclusion that right hon. Gentlemen opposite were right in 1946. What we have done, however, is to take the added days provision and to give the scheme the most generous system of added days ever to be known in the history of unemployment insurance. We believe that that is the right way of interpreting the will of Parliament in 1946. It is all very well for hon. Gentleman opposite who voted for the Act in 1946 today tardily to attack the provisions of that Act when they could have brought it to the attention of Parliamen long before Section 62 ceased to operate.
We acknowledge that there will be certain cases of hardship—no one can dispute that. It is quite wrong, however, to adopt the line that has been taken in some of the speeches in this House and which is shown more clearly in the headline in the "Daily Worker," when it says:
New dole rule throws them on Assistance.
The facts are these, and let them be on record. Twenty-eight per cent. of those who are today receiving extended benefit are also receiving National Assistance. That 28 per cent. will not be one penny worse off. In the large towns the figure, I regret to say, is as much as 50 per cent. I ask the House, therefore, to reject the Motion and to support the policy of the Government in giving the most generous provision of added days that has been known in the history of unemployment insurance in this country.

Question put.

The House divided: Aves. 222; Noes, 249.

Division No. 212.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Hamilton, W. W.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Hannan, W.
Popplewell, E.


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Hargreaves, A.
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)


Awbery, S. S.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)
Proctor, W. T.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Hastings, S.
Pryde, D. J.


Balfour, A.
Hayman, F. H.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)
Rankin, John


Bartley, P.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Bence, C. R.
Herbison, Miss M.
Reid, William (Camlachie)


Benn, Hon. Wedgwood
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Richards, R.


Benson, G.
Hobson, C. R.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Beswick, F.
Holman, P.
Roberts, Gorony (Caernarvon)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Bing, G. H. C.
Houghton, Douglas
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Blackburn, F.
Hoy, J. H.
Ross, William


Blenkinsop, A.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Royle, C.


Blyton, W. R.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley


Boardman, H.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Short, E. W.


Bowden, H. W.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Bowles, F. G.
Janner, B.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Brockway, A. F.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Skeffington, A. M.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Slater, J. (Durham, Sedgefield)


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Burke, W. A.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Snow, J. W.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Keenan, W.
Sorensen, R. W.


Callaghan, L. J.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Carmichael, J.
King, Dr. H. M.
Sparks, J. A.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Kinlay, J.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Champion, A. J.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Clunie, J.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Coldrick, W.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E


Collick, P. H.
Lewis, Arthur
Swingler, S. T.


Cove, W. G.
Lindgren, G. S.
Sylvester, G. O.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Logan, D. G.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Crosland, C. A. R.
MacColl, J. E.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Crossman, R. H. S.
McGhee, H. G.
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
McGovern, J.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Daines, P.
McInnes, J.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Thornton, E.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
McLeavy, F.
Timmons, J.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Tomney, F.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Deer, G.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Usborne, H. C.


Delargy, H. J.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Viant, S. P.


Dodds, N. N.
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Wallace, H. W.


Donnelly, D. L.
Manuel, A. C.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Driberg, T. E. N.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Weitzman, D.


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Mason, Roy
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Edelman, M.
Mayhew. C. P.
Wells, William (Walsall)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)
Mellish, R. J.
West, D. G.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Messer, Sir F.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Mikardo, Ian
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Mitchison, G. R.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Monslow, W.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Fernyhough, E.
Moody, A. S.
Wigg, George


Fletcher, Erie (Islington, E.)
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B


Foot, M. M.
Morley, R.
Wilkins, W. A.


Forman, J. C.
Mort, D. L.
Willey, F. T.


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mulley, F. W.
Williams, David (Neath)


Freeman, John (Watford)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Oldfield, W. H.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'll'y)


Gibson, C. W.
Oliver, G. H.
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Glanville, James
Orbach, M.
Wilson, Rt Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Gordon-Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Oswald, T.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Padley, W. E.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Grey, C. F.
Paget, R. T.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Yates, V. F.


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Pargiter, G. A.
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Hale, Leslie
Parker, J.



Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Paton, J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)
Peart, T. F.
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Arthur Allen.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Arbuthnot, John
Baldwin, A. E.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Banks, Col. C.


Alport, C. J. M.
Astor, Hon. J. J.
Barber, Anthony


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Baker, P. A. D.
Baxter, A. B.


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Beach, Maj. Hicks







Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Hay, John
O'Neill, Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Heath, Edward
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Higgs, J. M. C.
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)


Birch, Nigel
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-super-Mare)


Bishop, F. P.
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythemhawe)
Osborne, C.


Black, C. W.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Partridge, E.


Boothby, Sir R. J. G.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Holland-Martin, C. J.
Peto, Brig. C. H. M


Boyle, Sir Edward
Hollis, M. C.
Peyton, J. W. W.


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Hope, Lord John
Pilkington, Capt. R. A


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Horobin, I. M.
Pitman, I. J.


Brooman-White, R. C.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Pitt, Miss E. M.


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Powell, J. Enoch


Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Bollard, D. G.
Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Profumo, J. D.


Burden, F. F. A.
Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.
Raikes, Sir Victor


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Rayner, Brig. R


Campbell, Sir David
Jennings, R.
Redmayne, M.


Cary, Sir Robert
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Remnant, Hon. P.


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W
Renton, D. L. M.


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Keeling, Sir Edward
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)


Cole, Norman
Kerr, H. W.
Robertson, Sir David


Colegate, W. A.
Lambton, Viscount,
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Conant, Maj. R J. E
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Langford-Holt, J. A.
Roper, Sir Harold


Cooper-Key, E M.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Leather, E. H. C
Russell, R. S.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.


Crouch, R. F.
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T
Scott, R. Donald


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Lindsay, Martin
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Cuthbert, W. N.
Llewellyn, D. T.
Shepherd, William


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Davidson, Viscountess
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Deedes, W. F.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)


Digby, S. Wingfield
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Longden, Gilbert
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Low, A. R. W.
Stevens, G. P.


Donner, Sir P. W.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Doughty, C. J. A.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Storey, S.


Drayson, G. B.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
McAdden, S. J.
Summers, G. S.


Duthie, W. S.
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S
Sutcliffe, Sir Harold


Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir D. M.
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Erroll, F. J.
McKibbin, A. J.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Finlay, Graeme
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Fisher, Nigel
Maclean, Fitzroy
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Fletcher-Cooke, C.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Ford, Mrs. Patricia
Macpherson, Nial (Dumfries)
Touche, Sir Gordon


Fort, R.
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Turner, H. F. L.


Foster, John
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.
Turton, R. H.


Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Vane, W. M. F.


Galbraith, Rt. Hon. T. D. (Pollok)
Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Maude, Angus
Vosper, D. F.


Garner-Evans, E. H.
Maudling, R.
Walker-Smith, D. C.


George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Godber, J. B.
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Gough, C. F. H.
Mellor, Sir John
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Gower, H. R.
Molson, A. H. E.
Watkinson, H. A.


Graham, Sir Fergus
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Webbe, Sir H. (London & Westminster)


Gridley, Sir Arnold
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir Thomas
Wellwood, W.


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Harden, J. R. E.
Neave, A. M. S.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Wills, G.


Harvey, Air Cdre, A. V. (Macclesfield)
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Nutting, Anthony
Wood, Hon. R.


Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Oakshott, H. D.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:



Odey, G. W.
Sir Cedric Drewe and Mr. Kaberry.

HISTORIC BUILDINGS AND ANCIENT MONUMENTS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the preservation and acquisition of buildings of outstanding historic or architectural interest and their contents and related property, and to amend the law relating to ancient monuments and other objects of archaeological interest, it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the making by the Minister of Works out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(i) of grants in respect of the repair or maintenance of buildings appearing to the said Minister to be of outstanding historic or architectural interest, in respect of the upkeep of land associated with such buildings, and in respect of the repair or maintenance of objects so associated;
(ii) of grants to local authorities in respect of the acquisition of property under section forty-one of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, or section thirty-eight of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1947;
(iii) of grants to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty or to the National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty in respect of the acquisition of such buildings as aforesaid;

(b) the payment out of moneys so provided of expenses incurred by the said Minister in the acquisition of any such buildings or land as aforesaid, or in the acquisition of objects associated with buildings in which the said Minister or either of the said Trusts has an interest, or for which the said Minister is otherwise responsible, and of expenses incurred by the said Minister in dealing with any such buildings, land or objects acquired by him;
(c) the payment out of moneys so provided of remuneration or allowances, or of both remuneration and allowances, to the chairman or chairmen of any Council or Councils established under the said Act of the present Session, and of allowances to other members of any such Council or Councils;
(d) the payment out of moneys so provided—

(i) of any expenses incurred by the said Minister in the payment of compensation under any provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to ancient monuments;
(ii) of any increase attributable to those provisions in the expenses incurred by the said Minister under the Ancient Monuments Acts, 1913 and 1931;
(iii) of any administrative expenses incurred by the said Minister under the said Act of the present Session; and

(e) the payment into the Exchequer—

(i) of any sums paid to the said Minister out of the National Land Fund in accordance with the provisions of the said Act of the present Session, in so far as any sums so paid are not applied as

appropriations in aid of moneys provided by Parliament; and
(ii) of any other receipts of the said Minister under the said Act.

NORTHERN IRELAND (BUILDING REGULATIONS)

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Defence Regulations (No. 4) Order, 1953 (S.I., 1953, No. 885), dated 28th May, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th May, be annulled.
I daresay that there are many hon. Members who do not know what this all refers to. [Laughter.] I notice that hon. Members opposite laugh, but the reason is quite obvious. It is because hon. Gentlemen opposite arranged for this important announcement to be made not here, but in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. The object of this Order is to revoke all building controls so far as Northern Ireland is concerned. That is obviously a matter of some seriousness for the people of this country and it is, therefore, worth while reading what was said in regard to the matter in Northern Ireland by the Minister of Finance, presumably—no doubt that is one of the things we shall hear tonight—after consultation with hon. Gentlemen opposite.
On 5th May, he said:
I have been concerned to observe the continued high level of unemployment in the building trade, and it has seemed to me that here was perhaps the field in which, if restrictions were removed, the private citizen could do more without the Government doing less. I know that this was the view of my predecessor who had initiated discussions with the Minister of Works in Great Britain on this question. Accordingly, I pursued the question with the Minister, Mr. Eccles, and also with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am glad to tell the Committee that it has now been agreed that all building restrictions under Defence Regulation 56A shall be removed in Northern Ireland as soon as the necessary statutory instruments have been prepared and approved by Parliament at Westminster.
I should emphasise that this decision is confined to Northern Ireland and has been taken in view of the unemployment situation here." That was, of course, Northern Ireland, whereupon, as in duty bound, all the Members of the Northern Ireland House shouted, "Hear, hear."
We ought first of all to consider the amount of unemployment in Northern Ireland. It is an interesting figure to consider, because it is the result of 30 years of continuous Conservative rule. That is the one place where the party opposite have been in power, without any coalition or anything else, and have succeeded in raising unemployment to a figure of 9 per cent. If there were a similar figure throughout the whole of Great Britain it would mean that we should have a total of unemployed of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,900,000. But, very fortunately, policies have been pursued here somewhat different from those pursued in Northern Ireland and we have not yet found ourselves in the same situation.
The unemployment figures in Northern Ireland have always been a pointer towards the figures here. When we consider a remedy for unemployment in Northern Ireland we ought to consider whether it is a suitable remedy or whether in fact we should get the same sort of difficulties as we should get here. In matters of this sort it is proper and right that we should be fair to the Northern Ireland Government and point out the sort of difficulties with which they have had to contend. While there was a Labour Government in this country it was possible to keep the unemployment figures in Northern Ireland under some degree of control. In 1949 there were only 30,000. In 1950 there were only 26,900 and in 1951 only 28,500. In the first year of a Conservative Government, under the remarkable combination of a Conservative Government in Northern Ireland and a Conservative Government in this country, the unemployment figures shot up to 48,300. In other words, the result was that the figures were practically doubled. At present the figure is 9 per cent. as compared with 3·3 per cent. in Scotland and 3·5 per cent. in Wales.
So far as we can see, the only remedy which could be thought of for this unemployment situation was to do away with all control over building; in other words to restore the sort of situation which had previously existed in Northern Ireland. One of the questions that the House ought to ask before deciding whether or not to suggest that this Order should be annulled is what, in fact, in the years when there were no controls in Northern Ireland, was the housing

achieved? I hope that when the Minister replies he will give the up-to-date figures. The only figures I know are those published by the Northern Ireland Government, and they are only up to 1944. They are always a little behind-hand in view of the type of Government they have.
The document is Command Paper 224 from the Northern Ireland House. It was the Interim Report of the Planning Advisory Board. It refers to conditions of nearly 10 years ago, after only 22 years of Tory rule. At that period the deficiency of housing in Northern Ireland was 30·2 per cent. The deficiency varied considerably. One of the curious features was that it varied on a religious basis. In the area which happened to be most Protestant, Antrim, it happened to be only 28 per cent., but in the Roman Catholic area of Tyrone and Fermanagh it was 53 per cent.
In Belfast the situation is even more remarkable. The deficiency of housing in the whole area of Belfast was 37·2 per cent. but in the Smithfield ward, the poorest ward and the most Roman Catholic, it was 76·3 per cent. In the next most Roman Catholic ward—that of Falls—it was 62·1 per cent. and in Dock it was 54 per cent. That may have nothing to do with the matter. It may all have been altered since then, but that is what we want to know from the Minister. Have these deficiencies of housing, revealed in the Government's own report, been put right? No doubt we shall be told and then the House will decide whether or not to divide on this question.
The suggestion from the Northern Ireland side is that the only way to cure Northern Ireland's unemployment problem is to revoke all the building Regulations and restrictions and the machinery for preventing luxury building. Before deciding on that drastic remedy the House ought to consider whether there are not other remedies possible. I want to mention two possible remedies, one of which I know will appeal more to hon. Gentlemen opposite and the other of which will find more sympathy on this side of the House.
In Northern Ireland there is no conscription. That is one of the reasons why there may be more people unemployed. If there ever was a remedy which appeals to hon. Gentlemen opposite


for getting rid of the unemployed it was to conscript men. I am only sorry that it is the refusal to indulge in party politics which has prevented the Orange Lodges petitioning for this remedy.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): There is nothing about conscription in this Order.

Mr. Bing: With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you had the misfortune not to be in the Chair when I was reading the passage which dealt with this matter from the speech of the Minister of Finance in the Northern Ireland Parliament. The argument used—and I agree that just because an argument has been used by a Minister it does not mean that it is either applicable or indeed sense—but the fact that it was so used——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Even if it was neither, it might not be in order here.

Mr. Bing: With great respect, what was in fact proposed was that these Regulations should be revoked by this Parliament in order to enable unemployment to be cured in Northern Ireland.
It was said by the Minister of Finance:
I should emphasise that this decision is confined to Northern Ireland and has been taken in view of the unemployment situation here.
Therefore, before we take a decision based on unemployment in Northern Ireland, we are entitled to suggest that there may be some other methods of curing unemployment there.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think we may suggest them, but to go into detailed methods would be out of order.

Mr. Bing: I note that there have been no representations from the Orange lodges on this matter, and they did not suggest that conscription was one of the methods.
Now I come to another matter, that of the school leaving age in Northern Ireland, and the suggestion that it should be fixed at the same age as it is here. The school leaving age here is 15, as against 14, and one of the reasons why it is difficult for people in Northern Ireland to get work is that they are competing with people who have had the opportunity of a better education.

It is not their fault that they have been deprived of education, but the fault of the Government they have got, and it may well be not only advisable, not only more moral, but cheaper as well, to give greater education in Northern Ireland, and not just revoke the application of Defence Regulation 56A.
I hope that, when the Joint Under-Secretary replies, he will tell us exactly how luxury building in Northern Ireland will help in this matter. When, previously, this freedom to build as much as was desired existed, no building was, in fact, done other than luxury building. If we look at the Interim Report, which is practically the Bible on this matter, we see that one of the major provisions for providing houses in Ireland was the application of the Irish Labourers Act, 1883. If one looks to see what comment was made by one of the most experienced Northern Ireland politicians—Mr. Edmond Warnock—we find that he points out that in Fermanagh no houses were built under this Act since 1912.
If, in fact, no houses are to be built for people who need them, how is unemployment to be relieved by revoking the Regulations and by building houses for people who do not need them? Has the political situation and the economic situation in Northern Ireland become so bad that we have to apply this special sort of remedy, or will the Government revoke the Regulations in respect of Liverpool? The degree of unemployment in Liverpool is 4·4. If they had a school leaving age of 14 and no conscription, they might well have an unemployment rate of 9·0. Why should people in Liverpool be penalised because they serve in the Armed Forces and go to school until they are 15? What question of principle animates the Government in this particular matter?
If we are to have houses built, we must get rid of this religious attitude towards those who are to occupy them. Mr. Teevan, who used to sit for a Northern Ireland seat in this House, remarked on one occasion that he must attack the treacherous policy of giving houses to Roman Catholics, but the houses that are given to Roman Catholics may well have been built for Protestants.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think there is anything here about who should occupy them.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: Oh, but surely.

Mr. Bing: I do not think we ought to have this attitude towards houses based on a matter of religion, on the one side or the other. It is no use revoking the building Regulations if a policy is to be pursued internally which will deprive people of houses on all sorts of other grounds.
The real answer to Northern Ireland's problem of chronic unemployment has nothing whatever to do with building, and cannot be cured by fancy building of various sorts. It can only be cured by paying proper attention to what is the basic industry of Northern Ireland, that is, agriculture. But, even when hon. Members opposite get up and speak about it, the reply of the Minister is so vague that it is even noticed as being vague in the Northern Ireland papers, and, my goodness, they have had experience of vagueness from their own Ministers over the years, so that is a standard on which we congratulate the right hon. Gentleman opposite on achieving.
What is required is not this piecemeal approach to this problem. It should be realised that Northern Ireland is a special problem, that, after all, the expenses incurred by the Government there are ultimately met by the taxpayer here. I think I speak for all my hon. Friends on this side of the House when I say that if it meant a slightly larger contribution from Great Britain so that the school-leaving age in Northern Ireland could be raised, we would be in favour of it. What we are not in favour of is that there should be a sudden shifting to Northern Ireland of all the materials which may be required here for building miners' houses, for factories in areas where we need further development, and everything else, just because they have a Government who have proved themselves incapable for 30 years of dealing with their own unemployment problem.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I beg to second the Motion.
I have only a few sentences to add to what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) has said in so ably moving the Motion. It is rather a surprising thing that this is the first debate that we have had in my

recollection on unemployment in Northern Ireland during the past seven or eight years. I certainly do not recollect a previous one, and if there has been one we have heard very little about it. My hon. and learned Friend has moved this Motion with studied moderation because, in point of fact——

Captain L. P. S. Orr: The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard the speech I made on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Mr. Hale: I said there has been no debate on unemployment in Northern Ireland. We have had a debate on Lancashire and other Development Areas, but it is amazing that the Northern Ireland Members have not asked for a debate on this very important subject because the figures of unemployment there are relevant to the consideration of this matter.
I should have thought that, taking a large area which has a population only just in excess of that of Birmingham, an area with vast agricultural resources and with some of the best shipbuilding yards in the United Kingdom, no one but an effete Tory Administration could, at a time when we need more food and more ships, have brought about the appalling situation which we contemplate over the water today.
My hon. and learned Friend said that the unemployment figures had risen to about 8·5 or 9 per cent., but in point of fact in July, 1952, in the first year of the present Government, they rose to 60,000, or 13 per cent., a very unlucky number indeed for those who were suffering under that Administration. If we take the relevant figures for the last available month, April of this year, we find that unemployment in the North Midlands of England is 0·7 per cent. The highest figure for any region of England is 2·5 per cent.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: The hon. and learned Gentleman said 4·4 per cent.

Mr. Hale: The hon. Gentleman should listen before he opens his mouth. My hon. and learned Friend said that the unemployment figure for Liverpool was 4·4 per cent., but that is part of the Northern area, for which the figure is 2 per cent. In Wales the figure is 3·3, in Scotland it is 3·5, in Northern Ireland


it was 8·5 in April of this year, and April is a month when unemployment is normally low. It is an appalling suggestion that we are to remove the whole basis of our planning in Northern Ireland at a time when it is most needed.
My hon. and learned Friend referred to the fact that the only announcement of this proposal came from a speech in the Northern Ireland Parliament. But when it comes before this House it is in the form of a Statutory Instrument. It is a short but highly complex statement. It purports to repeal Section 56A of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, so far as they apply to Northern Ireland. It purports to repeal certain parts of the Schedule to those Regulations. By implication, many other Statutory Instruments which apply to Northern Ireland will fall to the ground because of the repeal of the authorising Measure so far as Northern Ireland is concerned.
And what does the explanatory note to this important Statutory Instrument say for the assistance of hon. Members of this House? There is no Explanatory Note at all. Not a word. It is a complete defiance of the rules laid down in respect of Statutory Instruments. But it was intended that this important Measure should travel through this House incognito; indeed, it might have done so but for the vigilance of my hon. and learned Friend.
He referred to the school situation. It may well be urged that it is difficult in Northern Ireland to extend the school-leaving age because there is no adequate school accommodation. Why not build schools? There are people unemployed in the building industry. There is not an area in the United Kingdom which is more in need of planned building than that. There is no area which needs more modern factories. There is no area which is more behind with its housing. And at this moment right hon. Gentlemen opposite say that they propose to create in this small area across the Channel an oasis of old-fashioned Toryism of the type that can perpetuate unemployment, that can perpetuate class distinction, that can make an area there in which all the evils of the past are reproduced.
I know it may be difficult for hon. Members for Northern Ireland to apply

their minds to this problem, because we were told a few weeks ago that they are fully occupied in applying their minds to Bills before this House which do not apply to Northern Ireland, and that they have to consider those Bills, in spite of that fact, in order to give the present Government a majority in the Division Lobby. That, I agree, is a hardship on them, but they ought——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman is getting a little beyond the Order now, is he not?

Mr. Hale: I am much obliged, Sir Charles, and I had finished with that point at the time you called my attention to it.
I will conclude by giving what I think is the one relevant figure which my hon. and learned Friend gave quite briefly. Under a Labour Government unemployment had been brought down in Northern Ireland to one of the lowest figures it has ever known in peace time, 26,000 in 1950, 28,000 in 1951. Under a Conservative Government it was up to 60,000 in July, 1952. At the time when the people of Lancashire were flocking in their thousands for unemployment pay, Northern Ireland was suffering the same results. It is less now, but it is still half as much again as it was under a Labour Government for those two whole years, and it is still much higher than it was practically throughout the whole period of a Labour Government.
My hon. and learned Friend asked, and I repeat, what is the principle behind this proposal? What is the principle that applies to Northern Ireland and does not apply to the rest of the country? Is it the policy of Her Majesty's Government to abolish these restrictions everywhere progressively? Are they proposing to do something like this in England and Wales and Scotland in the months to come? Is that what they intend?

Mr. Nabarro: I hope so.

Mr. Hale: We have the authentic voice of the active back benchers on this matter, and we know how they influence Government policy. They have had some modest success in other fields recently.
I ask the Minister to tell us that. We are entitled to know. Do the Government


believe in these restrictions, or do they not? If they believe in them, they must believe in them as a matter of principle and they must believe in them for the whole area. Nothing can be worse than this business of having piecemeal legislation, with conscription here and no conscription there, one school-leaving age here and another there and building restrictions here and none there.
I say quite seriously in seconding the Motion that the time is coming when this House may have seriously to consider the whole question of Northern Ireland and the whole question of legislation with regard to Northern Ireland. Nothing will speed on that consideration more than this habit of trying to make special concessions to that area, special provisions for that area and special licences for that area that do not apply to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth.

Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order. Before you call the Minister, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, will you not call on one of the numerous Members from Northern Ireland who are so eager to speak in this debate?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is no point of order. I call on Members when they rise and catch my eye, but nobody did so. Mr. McKibbin.

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Alan McKibbin: Regarding the allegations made by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) that the Roman Catholics did not get fair play and that there was discrimination against them, that is not the opinion of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Healy), who sits in the Ulster House of Parliament as well as in this House. He made a speech in which he said:
I am free to bear witness to the fair play that all needful cases meet under the Belfast Corporation as well as the Housing Trust and some other public bodies in the vicinity of Belfast or in the Counties of Antrim and Down.
He said that in a debate on housing in the Ulster House of Commons on 24th May, 1951, and it is reported in Vol. 35 of HANSARD at paragraph 1261. No other man in this House knows more about conditions and how the Roman

Catholics are treated in Northern Ireland than the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
Regarding the question of conscription, which the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch kept on talking about, when the 1939 war broke out——

Mr. Bing: Before the hon. Member leaves that point, will he allow me——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. We cannot have a debate on conscription on this Order. It relates entirely to housing.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order. If it is suggested that the Order is necessary to provide employment for certain unemployed persons in Northern Ireland, is it not in order to suggest alternative methods of doing so?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The suggestion can, perhaps, be touched upon, but to have a debate on the various things that might be done would be out of order. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman means. I allowed conscription to be mentioned but I did not want a debate on it, and I shall adhere to that.

Mr. Bevan: May I say with respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that there are other considerations? It may, for instance, be suggested that although conscription is remote from the consideration of the Order, the retention of the existing powers is necessary to get building materials and labour into the building of schools. That, surely, would be strictly relevant to the school leaving age. In other words, if there is a Regulation for certain purposes, it is permissible to argue that the powers proposed to be annulled should be used for other purposes.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is what I said. I allowed the subject to be mentioned but not to be debated in detail. I do not think that that would be in order in a debate on this Order.

Mr. McKibbin: The only reason why I was raising the question of conscription was because it was referred to so many times by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch. All that I wanted to say was that when the 1939 war broke out, the Ulster Government asked for conscription and it was refused by the British Government. When the


Korean war broke out, I asked for conscription in this House and it was ruled out of order.

10.40 p.m.

Sir David Campbell: The hon. and learned Member for Horn-church (Mr. Bing), as is his universal custom when any mention is made in this House of Northern Ireland, has found fault with the Government of Northern Ireland. This time, it is on the ground that it is a retrograde Government which has increased unemployment, and shown racial discrimination.

Hon. Members: Religious.

Mr. Bing: Does the hon. Member mean anybody who is not orange?

Sir D. Campbell: It is true that the unemployment figure in Northern Ireland has increased during the last two years, but the reason is not far to seek. The reason is almost entirely to be found in the depression in the linen trade. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) has raised this question of the linen trade in this House, and we believe that the present purchase tax system is adverse——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is nothing at all about the linen trade in this Order; I do hope that hon. Members will try to keep to the point.

Sir D. Campbell: The hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch did discuss the issue of unemployment and blamed the Conservative Government in Northern Ireland for having produced it. I regret that you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have ruled me out of order, and that it is not possible for me to deal with the matter, but I am sure that the House will agree that it is not because of any action by the Northern Ireland Government, or the failure by that Government to take any possible action, that there is unemployment. That Government is striving in every way possible to relieve unemployment by encouraging the setting up of new factories. It is doing that with the help of the Government here at Westminster, and I equally pay tribute to the Labour Government which, when in office, helped us in trying to achieve prosperity.
The hon. and learned Member discussed the question of religious bias in

Northern Ireland. One complaint which I have heard on many occasions in South Belfast is that there is a bias, but that it is in favour of the Roman Catholics. It is said that they have more of the new houses than do their Protestant brothers.
Reference has also been made to the effect of removing restrictions in the building industry, and the hon. and learned Member quoted figures up to the end of June, 1944. But, in fact, the figures for the period 1st June, 1944, to 31st March, 1953, show that the total number of houses built is 39,009, and that the number under construction on 1st April this year was 7,045; while those approved, but not yet commenced, totalled 4,624.

Mr. Bing: But will the hon. Member give the percentage deficiency figures? They are important, because if it was 30 per cent. in 1944, what is it today?

Sir D. Campbell: I have not those figures with me, but I think that the figures which I have given will show that the Northern Ireland Government, and the local authorities over there, have made a determined and magnificent effort to remedy the lack of housing accommodation. This applies not only to Belfast, but to all the counties of Northern Ireland, and I trust that the House will not grant this Prayer.
The Acting Minister of Finance in Northern Ireland put it rightly when he said that this Order will enable the Northern Ireland Government to provide employment for many in the building trade. It will not in any way interfere with the programme for the construction and betterment of hospitals and new schools, or interfere in any way with the programme of work being carried out by the Northern Ireland Building Trust and local authorities in providing accommodation for our workers in Northern Ireland. I earnestly trust that the House will refuse to vote for this Prayer.

10.46 p.m.

Mr. James Hudson: The speech of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Sir D. Campbell) has surely given to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) the whole of the case he wished to make—that there exists in Northern Ireland a very serious problem of unemployment. This Order could only be justified if it


were going to assist employment, as the Minister in Northern Ireland said. The hon. Member has told us that unemployment in Northern Ireland has no connection with the building trade; he has told us that it is due to the recession in the linen industry. Does he want us to believe that the building of more houses in Northern Ireland could be obtained under this Order by those engaged in the fine operations of the linen trade using cement and trowels and building houses?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: What about conscription?

Mr. Hudson: I shall not deal with conscription. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] There is quite a lot to the story about conscription, and I am the man who could say something about it, but I shall avoid breaking the rules and will stick to the short point that the hon. Members for Northern Ireland have raised. They have proved to us that, instead of this Order assisting to overcome the evil they say exists, it has no reference whatever to the evil of unemployment. They apparently do not know how to deal with it in the linen industry and they make confusion worse confounded by this Order, which will add to difficulties of housing in Northern Ireland as well. I hope the Motion will be supported.

Sir D. Campbell: I did not say that this Order will not help in the question of unemployment; it certainly will, but on a small scale, I agree. I did not say that we would wish to employ expert linen weavers on building houses. But the building of houses will give employment to a number of people in the building trade and will also stimulate the construction of factories.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Delargy: I did not intend to speak and I shall try to be as brief as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson), but something ought to be said about the most astonishing speeches we have heard from the hon. Members for Northern Ireland. They were two of the most astonishing speeches we have heard since the speech of the senior Member in this House—who has now gone to another place—when he moved the election of the Speaker in the first speech made in this Parliament.
The speeches were not only astonishing but ignorant. They were obviously made by men who had not read the Order. When they tried to rebut the statement made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) about religious discrimination in the allocation of houses, all they could do was to quote a Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament and some obscure constituents of the hon. Member opposite, whereas, my hon. and learned Friend quoted figures.
Why have they not got the figures to answer? Surely they must have them? Surely they must have come here tonight prepared for this debate? Therefore, they must not make these wild allegations, and merely quote obscure people we have never heard about. I would give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I am sure his intervention would not be any longer than his speech was. But surely one would have thought that the Members for the Northern Ireland seats would have been the first to have welcomed the speech which was made by my hon. and learned Friend. It was a very constructive speech—a speech whose aim was to cure unemployment in their own constituencies, a problem which apparently does not affect them very much. It was a very constructive speech.
He proposed, for example, that Northern Ireland should be treated as a specially distressed area, as a special problem needing special remedies. Have they anything against that? He proposed, furthermore, that the school-leaving age might be raised in Northern Ireland. Have they anything against that? He proposed, furthermore, that, if necessary, we on this side of the House would be prepared to consider an even larger contribution to be made to the coffers of Northern Ireland. Have they any objection to that?

Sir Ian Fraser: I have.

Mr. Delargy: I know very well that the hon. Member has strong objections to the spending of money in Northern Ireland, and many other places, such as spending it on the health services, and on people coming into this country from other countries. But the very constructive measures, which would benefit Northern Ireland, which were suggested


by my hon. and learned Friend, do not seem to find favour with those who represent Northern Ireland, and I firmly hope that their constituents will take very grave notice of it.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: rose——

Mr. Delargy: Has the hon. and gallant Member read the Order?

10.53 p.m.

Captain Orr: Like the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy), it was not my intention either to make a speech on this Order, which has been handed to me. Northern Ireland, as the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), who seems to be so interested in our affairs, has said, presents a special problem. The hon. Member for Thurrock referred to Northern Ireland being in a very special position. I think this country as a whole was conscious of the very special position which Northern Ireland occupied during the late war, and I trust that no one will endeavour to measure the strategic value of the loyalty of our people in terms of pounds, shillings and pence.

Mr. Delargy: Why take pounds, shillings and pence away from them after the war?

Captain Orr: This is a very special problem. As has been pointed out, our level of unemployment is very high, and it is far too high. All of us are conscious of that, and all of us are not concerned with making cheap party debating points late at night, but with trying seriously and sensibly to see what is the cause of this unemployment, and seeing if there is anything we can devise to overcome it. Unemployment does exist there, and is running at 9 per cent., and it does cause us very serious disquiet. It is, in the main, due to that very special geographical position which we occupy—the fact that we have got a cross-channel service, the fact that we have got a channel of water between ourselves and the rest of the country, with the double handling of freight, and so on, which adds so much to the cost of bringing our raw materials to our industry, and bringing our products from our industries to their markets. That is the basic cause of the malaise in Northern Ireland.
The other cause is that we are far too dependent on certain basic industries, such as the textile industry and shipbuilding. If there is a recession in any one of those, as we recently had in textiles, it disorganises the whole of our employment fabric. Therefore we can say that at the moment we suffer from the grievous disability of cross-channel freightage; that we have not got conscription, and we ought to have it, and that in spite of all efforts our industries are not yet diversified enough.
Yet we are employing infinitely more people than before in Northern Ireland. In spite of having had to deal with the additional complication of the people across the Border from that paradise to which the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch would consign us——

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: Is it not the fact that in Northern Ireland a person who has not had previous employment has to have a special permit from the employment exchange to work in an industry while there are any members of that industry unemployed?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That deals with a subject which is beyond the scope of the Order.

Captain Orr: If I may be allowed to say so, that is true. The paradise from which the immigrants come is not sufficiently attractive to keep them and we have to make some regulation to prevent them coming across the Border in absolute hoards and taking the jobs from our people. I am not in the least ashamed of that. I hope the House will reject this Prayer. I hope the electorate in Northern Ireland will read carefully what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch and others. I hope they will notice the support given by the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and the attempt by the Labour Party to sabotage a measure designed to relieve unemployment in Northern Ireland.

10.58 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): I will begin by answering some of the points made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). He asked whether it was the case that a number of other Regulations fell with


this Regulation. I am advised that the only Orders that fall within this Order are those actually made under it. The hon. Member also asked why there was no Explanatory Note to the Order. I asked the same question myself until I had read the Order, when I found that the answer was fairly apparent. It does not need an Explanatory Note because the Order is quite plain.

Mr. Hale: To say that we are repealing Defence Regulation 56A does not convey anything to hon. Members of this House, let alone to members of the public. No one knows what Defence Regulation 56A is. It is the whole purpose of an Explanatory Note to warn hon. Members. We have 2,000 Statutory Instruments a year. None of us could go into the Library and see what they all mean. We should have been warned that this applied to building restrictions in Northern Ireland.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: If the hon. Member reads the Order he will see that it states on the face of the Order that Regulation 56A relates to the control of building and other operations specified in the Schedule——

Mr. Bing: In the Schedule, yes.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The Order has been considered by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Committee has not drawn attention to it, no doubt for the reason I have given.
The debate has been over a fairly wide field and, in order to bring the matter into perspective, I must state the broad principles on which this Order is designed. The Government of Ireland Act provided that certain powers should be transferred to the Government of Northern Ireland and certain powers reserved to the Government at Westminster. The transferred powers dealt mainly with domestic matters, such as law and order, health, agriculture, and housing, with which this Order is concerned. Those which were reserved were, for the most part, concerned with external matters, such as foreign policy and defence.
The war-time legislation, of which the Defence Regulations formed part, was essentially a matter of defence and, for that reason, it was treated as being a reserved matter; it was dealt with by

Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, and not as a power transferred to the Government of Northern Ireland. Regulation 56A is no exception to that rule, notwithstanding that it deals with housing which, in the ordinary way would have been treated as a transferred matter. It has continued to be treated as a reserved matter because the control of building operations has been dealt with as a problem for the United Kingdom as a whole. The difficulty has been shortages of materials and labour, and it has been closely related to our overseas exchange position.
Under paragraph 15 of the Regulation, the powers which are exercisable by the Minister of Works in Great Britain are vested, in the case of Northern Ireland, in the Home Secretary. Defence Regulation 102A permits delegation in the case of Northern Ireland, and the powers given by Regulation 56A were, in fact, delegated to the Government of Northern Ireland. They were first delegated by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) when he was Home Secretary, and there have been subsequent delegations. The position hitherto has been that they were delegated to the Ministry of Finance in Northern Ireland subject to general directions which could be given by the Home Secretary. In that way, the powers were exercised in Northern Ireland, but the general position of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom was maintained.
The basis of keeping on the control of building has been the need to defend our economic position generally, and that is why these powers have hitherto been reserved. But the position in Northern Ireland has been, and is, changing; and there are at present circumstances there which have to be borne in mind when considering the need for this Order. In the first place, there is no large volume of unsatisfied demand for building in Northern Ireland. The estimate is that the total increase, including factories and all other building in Northern Ireland, as a result of this Order becoming effective will be of a value of £1 million a year. That is an almost insignificant increase in relation to the total building in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Hale: Only a few minutes ago we heard from the hon. and gallant Gentleman


for Down, South (Captain Orr) a passionate plea for diversification of industry. How can we diversify industry unless we build some factories?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am not dealing with that aspect of the matter. I have said that there is not a very large unsatisfied demand in Northern Ireland. It is certainly not large at all in relation to the total volume of building in the United Kingdom. In the second place, there is unfortunately a plentiful supply of building labour in Northern Ireland. I am not now speaking of unskilled labour only. There is, of course, a surplus of skilled building labour in Northern Ireland. In the third place, there are available in Northern Ireland adequate materials to cover the needs which will arise as a result of freeing the building industry there.
There is no risk, as a result of the making of this Order, of any interference with the supplies of building material in Great Britain. Any increase in demand for cement will be virtually covered by the opening of the new Magheramorne cement works this year. There may be some small margin which will be required to be imported from this country, but I am advised that only an insignificant call will be made upon our resources. Enough bricks are produced locally in Northern Ireland to cover all foreseeable needs in that country. Softwoods, which are scarce both here and in Northern Ireland, will remain subject to the same restrictions there as here, so that there will be no question arising in that respect.
It was in those economic circumstances that the Government of Northern Ireland thought fit to approach Her Majesty's Government in Westminster to ask for the removal of these restrictions which can be removed only by an Order in Council. The matter was considered and Her Majesty's Government were most willing to grant the request. That was stated, as the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) has said, in an announcement made by the Minister of Finance in his Budget Statement in Northern Ireland on 5th May. I need not trouble the House by referring to that again, but I think that it is only right that I should say what the reaction to that statement was in the Parliament at Stormont.
Mr. Diamond is a Member of the Northern Ireland House of Commons. He is certainly not a Tory. He describes himself as a Socialist Republican. He said, in this debate:
The Minister has mentioned—and at the same time I will pay tribute to his efforts in this regard—that a Defence Regulation of a very restrictive character was about to be removed so far as building construction in Northern Ireland is concerned. There, again, I think that we failed in past years. We did not fail so much out of lack of proper representation, but we failed for reasons of false pride and prestige in trying to assume a certain position and in refusing to have Northern Ireland recognised as a special area. …
Then, he concluded that part of his speech by saying:
The effect of that restriction"—
that is to say, all the restrictions imposed by Regulation 56A—
has been tremendous. It has, to my mind, been largely responsible for the heavy incidence of unemployment at the present time.

Mr. Bing: I think I ought to tell the House that this gentleman was the same gentleman who was expelled from the Irish Labour Party for his un-Socialist approach to the various problems of Northern Ireland.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I can only suppose there is some similarity between the Socialist Party in Northern Ireland and the Socialist Party over here.

Mr. Nabarro: Split in two.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: This control, so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, has passed from being a matter of defence altogether. It is no longer part and parcel of the general economic policy of the United Kingdom as a whole. In present circumstances this important matter is a social and internal problem for Northern Ireland itself. I am not for a moment suggesting it is not important, but I do suggest that it is not a matter for which this House should take responsibility any longer.
If I may I will quote a paragraph from a speech made by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in a debate in this House on 1st June, 1951. He said:
I want to make this quite clear. It is no part of the duty of the Home Secretary in this country to defend here the actions of the Northern Ireland Government. If they impinged on any subject which had not been


transferred to them, it would be my duty at once to assert the authority of this House and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, but in the Act we have delegated to them certain quite specific functions, and they must answer for them to the people to whom they are responsible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st June, 1951; Vol. 488, c. 624.]

This question of the control of building has been properly treated in the past as a matter for the United Kingdom as a whole. While it was so treated, it was for the Home Secretary to answer in this House, but the matter has become a question properly to be dealt with in Northern Ireland, having regard to the needs of the people of Northern Ireland. It is for that reason that we have thought fit to ask the House to make this Order, which will take away the effect of Regulation 56A upon Northern Ireland. I ask the House to reject this Prayer against it.

11.14 p.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: I think the House will agree that as the Joint Under-Secretary of State has spent a little time necessarily in explaining the Order, it would be perfectly proper for me to take a little time explaining why we cannot agree with it.
I want, in the first place, to enter a very strong protest against the language in which the Order is made. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), was correct in protesting against the absence of any effective and adequate Explanatory Note. If hon. Members will possess themselves of the Order, I think they will see it is one of the most complicated Orders that the House has been asked to consider for some time. It contains a whole lot of references to previous pieces of legislation, and I defy anyone, at first reading, to understand what the Order is about.
The hon. Member rested his defence upon the use of the language "building and other operations." What other operations? The other day I gave evidence on a Committee upstairs on delegated legislation. This is delegated legislation. It was understood and accepted by hon. Members in the war Parliament and afterwards that Regulations of a complicated kind should carry on their surface indications of what they were about. This does not. It is sneak legislation. I repeat, sneak legislation. It was intended to get the consent of

the House of Commons to an Order in ignorance of its purport, on the assumption that it was some obscure matter, and we would still be in that position if my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) had not conducted his investigations in his usual assiduous fashion and called our attention to them. So I say at once that if the House did its duty it would ask the Government to take back the Order.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments did not do its duty?

Mr. Bevan: On the contrary. The Select Committee now upstairs was appointed by the House because the existing procedure is unsatisfactory. That is the whole point of it. Indeed, it has been found to be unsatisfactory, and if the hon. Member knew his business better he would have found it out.
The Statutory Instruments Committee discovered that the spate of legislation is such that unless they have some indication of what is meant by a Regulation they cannot do their duty of calling the attention of the House to it. When they look at this Regulation, how can they, without investigation, find out what it means? It is the duty of the Government to assist the Statutory Instruments Committee so that they need no make such investigations. In this case the Government have sought to sneak it through the Statutory Instruments Committee and then through the House of Commons. I see that the Joint Under-Secretary's hon. Friend is coming to his rescue.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hugh Molson): I was only wanting a little elucidation from the right hon. Gentleman, who knows so much about this subject. Does he mean to say that the Statutory Instruments Committee have no power to get elucidation at the present time?

Mr. Bevan: I said the very opposite. I said there are thousands of Statutory Instruments presented to the House—2,000 a year—and that the Statutory Instruments Committee's work in digesting them and directing the attention of the House to what is in their opinion important or otherwise would be assisted, in the first instance, by an Explanatory Note. Our protest is that there is no Explanatory Note.
Therefore, if the House was doing its duty merely as a workshop, quite independently of the content of the Regulation and the substance of the argument advanced from both sides, it should insist on the Government taking back this Regulation tonight and re-presenting it in a form that would enable hon. Members to do their duty properly. That is the first thing it would do.
I was really quite shocked when I looked at the Regulation—because I have been responsible for many Regulations in my time—to find that there is nothing at all to indicate its intention. We must remember that Explanatory Notes are intended not only to indicate the purport of the Regulation, but also the intention of the Government in making it. It is only by having an Explanatory Note of that kind that the Statutory Instruments Committee can be given a danger signal that they ought to make further investigation.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: indicated dissent.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member shakes his head. He had better read his own previous speeches on the subject, because he would then realise that I am correct.
I hope that I shall have support from all parts of the House in the strictures which I have felt it necessary to make. Concerning the content of the Regulation, the House is presented with a microcosm of the policy of a Conservative Administration in the event of rising unemployment in Great Britain. For reasons that have been explained by one or two hon. Members on both sides of the House, there is in Northern Ireland an unemployment problem running to the order of 8 or 9 per cent. A great deal of that is in the building trade. What was the purpose of the restrictions on the building industry both here and in Northern Ireland? The hon. Gentleman was wrong in what he said. They did not derive from defence. They derived from the Supplies and Services Act. It was only because all the restrictions on the employment of labour and the use of materials from 1939 were contained under the umbrella of a Defence Act. That was the reason, and therefore to say that considerations of defence have now disappeared from Northern Ireland is plain nonsense.
The hon. Gentleman and his officials have allowed themselves to be deceived by questions of pure nomenclature. In fact he should have realised that for the last six or seven years we have been discussing all kinds of restrictions and inhibitions upon the employment of labour and the use of materials of various kinds under the umbrella of Defence Regulations, although they have nothing at all to do with defence. So that that argument goes by the board. To say that there are no longer any defence considerations for Northern Ireland, and therefore we can relax the inhibitions, is absurd.
I met the Minister of Health from Northern Ireland over and over again and gave assistance, which I believe was valuable, in enabling them to deal with their housing problem. In fact, I had expressions of gratitude from them on several occasions because we made available to them the arrangements we had made for prefabricated housing in Great Britain, and on several occasions we sacrificed a considerable number of prefabricated buildings in order to relieve the situation in bombed Belfast. So that we had here a very close connection with the housing problem in Northern Ireland.
What was, and is, the purpose of these restrictions on building? It is to try to canalise the building resources of the nation into directions where they are most needed. That is the whole point of them. We retain them in Great Britain today. They have been relaxed in some degree by the Minister of Housing and Local Government for his own reasons which I cannot argue now, but the purpose was to enable us to see to it that in this vital, pivotal segment of industry the State should still have the power of directing labour and materials where they were most needed in the national interest.
But, says the Minister, there is a surplus of building labour in Northern Ireland. Yes, but the surplus is artificially created. If the Northern Ireland Parliament had been doing its duty of building more houses, building more schools, building factories for the diversification of Northern Ireland industry, there would be no surplus of labour. This is not a natural creation; it does not come down from the sky.

Captain Orr: Surely we must have someone to occupy them?

Mr. Bevan: I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman expressed regret that Northern Ireland had not been scheduled as a distressed area. What is the point of scheduling an area as a distressed area? It is to build factories there that would not have been built by undirected private enterprise. These are elementary lessons in national planning, and hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to know that we denied over and over again, for 6½ years, and we still deny, I hope, certain people who wanted to build in London because we do not want this conurbation added to and in order to direct them to build in those parts of Great Britain where it is most desirable for them to build. We used the licensing procedure for that purpose. It is the negative direction of industry. Therefore, it is absolutely nonsensical to say that building in Northern Ireland should be freed because that country has not got diversification of industry. It has not got diversification of industry because it has not used its powers sufficiently.
As my hon. and learned Friend said, the school-leaving age is 14. If the Government do not raise it to 15 and, therefore, build more schools, there will be unemployed building labour. If the building labour is not used to build factories, there will be unemployed building labour. Having created the unemployed building labour, the existence of that unemployment is used as an excuse to free all building from further restriction and inhibition.
Let us try to translate that into terms of Great Britain. Suppose that we had 8 or 9 per cent. unemployment in Great Britain. Apparently, by the same logic, the Government would not build more schools, although they are needed badly. They would not take down the slum schools and build modern schools. [Interruption.] The noble Lord should contain himself. If he wishes to make an intelligent interruption, I am prepared to sit down.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I only wished to inform the right hon. Gentleman, in case he does not know it, that there are more people besides the Government who are capable of building schools.

Mr. Bevan: I gave way for an intelligent interruption, but the noble Lord has not accepted my invitation.
We understand now, if this be the precedent upon which we are to be guided, that if there is unemployed building labour in Great Britain, instead of stepping up the school building programme, the Government would abolish restrictions on the building industry and enable more cinemas to be built—that is the logic of it. The Government would not, as my hon. and learned Friend has said, try to canalise the unemployed labour into those directions where it could serve the community best on a long-term vision, but would do exactly as was done before the war: that is, to convert unemployed workers in South Wales into liveried commissionaires in Bournemouth, providing labour for the luxury hotels built in Bournemouth, Cheltenham and elsewhere, at the expense of a dereliction of the development areas. That is the logical conclusion. It means nothing more than that.
Of course, there is always a Nemesis to this. We have got it from Italy. In 1948 I was in Italy at the invitation of the Italian Government, and I went to Naples. In Naples I saw 13 new cinemas being built with Marshall Aid steel. There was no restriction upon building. All along the Apennines there were villages and towns that had been razed to the ground in 1943, and not one single stone had been laid upon another, but there was the same Tory principle of allowing private enterprise to do what it likes whenever it has the chance.
And so they had 13 cinemas going up in Naples. I said to the Members of the Italian Government that a continuation of that policy would see its result in the Italian elections. We are seeing the result now. There is now a very large increase in Communist votes in Italy. It may not happen in Northern Ireland, but I am bound to say that when I consider the philosophy that lies behind this Order and when I consider the deplorable level of Parliamentary representation that Northern Ireland has in this House at the present time, when I consider their meagre contribution to debate, their old-fashioned arguments and the extent to which they are, obviously, under the influence of vested interests in Northern Ireland, it seems to me that the time has come that we ourselves ought no longer to be oppressed by their presence and have our legislative processes interfered with by their votes.

11.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hugh Molson): The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has raised one or two points on quite general matters and, in the course of three minutes, I should like to reply to them. First, he says that there is no Explanatory Note to this Order. But the matter has been referred to the Select Committee which, as he knows, has the right to send for representatives of the Department concerned, and that Committee is able to obtain any explanation it may require. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the House?"] It is extraordinary that he does not know what is the procedure of that Select Committee, for it has the right to send for a representative of the Ministry and ask for an explanation; and if it has not done so, it is because the members think that the Order is self-explanatory.

Mr. Bevan: Does the hon. Member know if the Committee has, in fact, yet reached this Regulation?

Mr. Molson: If it has not done so——

Mr. Bevan: Has it?

Mr. Molson: If it has not done so, then there is no point in his remark that it is "sneak legislation," because he knows that it will be subjected to scrutiny. His charge, therefore, is quite absurd.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member obviously is not so familiar as we are, because we have been dealing with this quite recently. It has been a part of the comment to the Select Committee on delegated legislation that quite often a Prayer in the House is put down against a Regulation before the Statutory Instruments Committee can reach it. Has the Statutory Instruments Committee reached the Order and made a comment upon it?

Mr. Molson: I do not know if the Committee has, but it so happens that I am the back bencher who, in 1944, moved the Motion, accepted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), to set up the Committee. I was consulted by the right hon. Gentleman for Lewisham, South as to the terms of reference

for the Committee, and one of the points agreed by the two sides of the House was that there should be this power of investigation by the Committee.
I am, in fact, now informed that this Statutory Instrument has been investigated, but that does not alter my point that the right hon. Gentleman should not call this "sneak legislation," especially when a Committee has been set up to see that delegated legislation does not pass through this House unscrutinised. Several hon. Members have raised the question about the building regulations. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale——

Mr. Delargy: On a point of order. I can quite understand providing time for a reply, but the House has had one reply and the hon. Member is now replying to other speeches.

Mr. Speaker: That procedure may be tautological, but it is not out of order.

Mr. Molson: The hon. Member for Oldham, West asked whether we believed in building restrictions as a matter of principle. The answer is that we do not believe in them as a matter of principle and ever since this Government came in there has been a series of relaxations of building regulations. When in the case of Northern Ireland there is an opportunity of removing regulations in order to set the building industry free, it is in accordance with the general principles of the Minister of Works that that should be done. We are fully satisfied that in giving this opportunity for more work in Northern Ireland there will be no excessive demand upon building materials from this country, and we are anxious to do everything we can to help the employment position in Northern Ireland. We believe that can best be done by removing building regulations.

Mr. Hale: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I have had two separate explanations from two separate Ministers. Can he say which Minister is speaking for Her Majesty's Government?

Question put,

The House divided: Ayes, 83; Noes, 114.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Heath.]

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter to Twelve o'clock.